Anyone mortgage free?

We live in an insanely over heated housing market and started with little equity. The oldest, smallest, most terrible houses around us start at $900k. So we are 2 adults and 2 kids in a nice 2 br condo and it still cost a fortune. Moving to a cheaper neighbourhood would mean much longer commutes and much worse schools. So we are a long long long way from ever being mortgage free.

To everyone who has done it, wtg! I am hugely jealous and I hope you are living it up!
 
Plus I work per diem and travel 45 minutes each way to work. In the last 2 weeks, I have not worked at all. I cannot imagine if we were depending on my income like we were in NH to live. We basically live off of 1 paycheck at the moment and consider it a bonus when I do work. I am looking for another job without luck so far. Thank goodness all of the snowbirds are coming back to Florida and work will pick up.
 
We live in an insanely over heated housing market and started with little equity. The oldest, smallest, most terrible houses around us start at $900k. So we are 2 adults and 2 kids in a nice 2 br condo and it still cost a fortune. Moving to a cheaper neighbourhood would mean much longer commutes and much worse schools. So we are a long long long way from ever being mortgage free.

To everyone who has done it, wtg! I am hugely jealous and I hope you are living it up!

This is a bit how I feel in the Denver area. We did buy five years ago and so we do have some equity built up but we will never be mortgage free here. The prices are just too high (not as high as your area but high nonetheless!). However, it's great living here (best weather ever!!!), and I understand why people keep pouring into this state. I did the same once upon a time!
 


I was watching Fixer Upper last night, and a move in ready 3,000 square foot house in Waco was selling for $175,000. I say move in ready, because it had some "different" colored tile in the kitchen and interesting color choices for the walls that most of us would change, but structurally and functionally it was perfect. I know other cities a house like that would easily be well over $1 million.
My house payment was $1,100 for a $100,000 house at 12.25% 30 year (we jumped in 1983 when mortgage rates fell from 15%!) I actually paid $100 extra, so $1,200 a month. I refi-ed in 1987 to a 30 year at 9 % and a $900 payment. And I refied to a 15 year at 6.25% at $620 a month in 1991. House paid off in 2000. But the trick was, we never lowered what we paid each month from $1,200.
My property taxes started at $1,000 in 1983. Today they are $2,200 on a house valued by Zillow at $460,000. But in California property taxes are capped at 1% of what paid for the house, with the tax allowed to increase no more than 3% a year.
Not saying you'd give up a lot living in Waco, but you'd give up a lot living in Waco lol. I went to college for 4 years there, and have been back a lot, including a year ago. Also, property taxes are higher in TX than what you pay in CA or what I pay in CO. Can be lots higher. Waco isn't awful but it's a lot higher than my taxes in CO. We looked at moving back a year ago and even with a cheaper home, our payment wouldn't change that much...Property taxes and home owner's insurance were both higher.
 
Not saying you'd give up a lot living in Waco, but you'd give up a lot living in Waco lol. I went to college for 4 years there, and have been back a lot, including a year ago. Also, property taxes are higher in TX than what you pay in CA or what I pay in CO. Can be lots higher. Waco isn't awful but it's a lot higher than my taxes in CO. We looked at moving back a year ago and even with a cheaper home, our payment wouldn't change that much...Property taxes and home owner's insurance were both higher.
Guess it matters where you live in Texas on property taxes. My wife's step-mother lives in Vidor, her property taxes are $777 a year according to Zillow. Comparable house on a bigger lot than ours in California, and our property taxes are $2,200 a year. And we've owned the house 35 years, so our property taxes are set based on that value, not today's value in California.
 
Guess it matters where you live in Texas on property taxes. My wife's step-mother lives in Vidor, her property taxes are $777 a year according to Zillow. Comparable house on a bigger lot than ours in California, and our property taxes are $2,200 a year. And we've owned the house 35 years, so our property taxes are set based on that value, not today's value in California.

I was raised in Vidor! My grandma still lives there :) Her house is valued at 90k and her taxes are $1500yr so even in Vidor, it matters where you live.

ETA: we live in the Denver area. House valued at 600k, taxes are 3k.
 


We paid off our mortgage last summer and then two months later found our "dream house". Was not even looking. No longer mortgage free....
 
Yes, and have been for the last 24 years here in the Albuquerque area. Paid off the house on 2.25 acres in 9 years by not buying new cars (old cars were paid off), no vacations, no extras period. We've kept up the simple budget by saving and paying (dickering) cash every 10 years for a new vehicle and remodeling the house as needed (contractors love cash).
We haven't quite been mortgage-free for 24 years, but we're not too far behind you -- and for similar reasons. No, we aren't high-income earners. We keep our cars a long time, we eat at home most evenings, we buy used items, we are moderate in most things. While most of our friends "traded up" for bigger houses, we stayed put and invested. A dollar at a time, we paid off our house about the time our daughters reached middle school -- and we did LOTS of travel while they were both still at home. With our monthly expenses reduced, we've been able to save-save-save -- while still paying for our daughters' educations. Our next big deal: Early retirement.
 
Well, my work has not used me in almost a month. They are giving me 8 days in October and 8 days in November. After paying $10,000 for new floors, we found out our sub floors were bad. All in all, we have paid $24,000 for a vapor barrier, new sub floors, and flooring. Thank goodness we did not have a huge mortgage on top of that.
 
To echo a few others - I don't see a point in paying off the loan. We purchased in 2004 with 20% Down and Refinanced in 2005 to an Interest-Only Mortgage. Basically, instead of paying down the principle every month - we decided to just make one huge payment every new year - to knock out the balance. With our payments and market appreciation, we now owe less than 50% of our home value and have a little over $600k in equity. From 2009 till 2017 - we were paying between 2.6% and 2.9% Interest, on our loan as well as obtaining a tax deduction -- while our investments were far outperforming the cost of borrowing. It just doesn't make sense, in my opinion, to rush and pay down our mortgage. If the Mortgage Deduction went away, it might make more sense -- but for now, I just don't see a point.


Since our ARM finally adjusted upward - we refinanced a few months ago into a 20 Year Fixed Rate @ 4.625%. Under our current plan - we should have our house paid off in 12 years. But even after we pay it off - me and DH have debated taking cash out and reinvesting it in the market - if the returns are better. The cost of money is so cheap in this case - it almost seems silly not to take advantage of it.
 
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I was raised in Vidor! My grandma still lives there :) Her house is valued at 90k and her taxes are $1500yr so even in Vidor, it matters where you live.

ETA: we live in the Denver area. House valued at 600k, taxes are 3k.
Wow, we live in western suburbs of Chicago and our property taxes were a bit north of 11,000 this year and our home has a value of about $500,000. Hoping to be mortgage free in next five years. We did cash flow the purchase of a business condo for my husband and Completely paid for both of our daughters college educations. Now that we are done with that we can concentrate on the mortgage.
 
Wow, we live in western suburbs of Chicago and our property taxes were a bit north of 11,000 this year and our home has a value of about $500,000. Hoping to be mortgage free in next five years. We did cash flow the purchase of a business condo for my husband and Completely paid for both of our daughters college educations. Now that we are done with that we can concentrate on the mortgage.

Not sure which part of my post your are wow'ed by :D Vidor is a very, very, very small town in TX. Not sure you could pay me to live there. I don't miss a single thing about moving away except my grandma.

I suspect that maybe the property taxes I currently pay have you interested. I live in Jefferson County in CO (city of Littleton). Taxes are great. Living here is great!
 
Another Californian here with $23k a year in property taxes :( We also have a big mortgage payment, but in 4 months or so we hope to be mortgage free when we downsize and sell our house in an overheated market. The new tax bill is partially responsible for our timing as property taxes aren’t going to be fully deductible anymore for us. We pay a ton for the good schools in our area so with the last kid graduated ... time to get out of dodge :)
 
Another Californian here with $23k a year in property taxes :( We also have a big mortgage payment, but in 4 months or so we hope to be mortgage free when we downsize and sell our house in an overheated market. The new tax bill is partially responsible for our timing as property taxes aren’t going to be fully deductible anymore for us. We pay a ton for the good schools in our area so with the last kid graduated ... time to get out of dodge :)

welcome to the club-are you going to stay in california or truly get out of dodge to another state? we sold right before the bubble burst in '06 and haven't looked back. i get where you're coming on with the property taxes. despite the protections prop 13 put in back in the day it was still crazy how much we were paying there. where we live people gripe about property taxes but we just shake our heads b/c despite our current home's assessed value being about 20% higher than the assessed value of our house in california back in '06 we are paying 30% lower property taxes than we paid 12 years ago:faint: (and that's with a big bond that was passed a couple of years ago to fund massive building for the local school district).


i have to wonder what will happen with the housing market come next year-i think ALLOT of homeowners have their heads in the sand about the changes to tax deductions and will be in for a HUGE shock (as well as potentially a HUGE tax bill). so many people i knew were in a delicate balancing act of being able to pay their mortgages only b/c of the benefits of the now eliminated or greatly reduced tax write-offs.
 
welcome to the club-are you going to stay in california or truly get out of dodge to another state? we sold right before the bubble burst in '06 and haven't looked back. i get where you're coming on with the property taxes. despite the protections prop 13 put in back in the day it was still crazy how much we were paying there. where we live people gripe about property taxes but we just shake our heads b/c despite our current home's assessed value being about 20% higher than the assessed value of our house in california back in '06 we are paying 30% lower property taxes than we paid 12 years ago:faint: (and that's with a big bond that was passed a couple of years ago to fund massive building for the local school district).


i have to wonder what will happen with the housing market come next year-i think ALLOT of homeowners have their heads in the sand about the changes to tax deductions and will be in for a HUGE shock (as well as potentially a HUGE tax bill). so many people i knew were in a delicate balancing act of being able to pay their mortgages only b/c of the benefits of the now eliminated or greatly reduced tax write-offs.

We pay about $12k a year in taxes on a home worth a little shy of $500k. I am prepared to get whacked when it comes to filing for this year since we have both high property and state income taxes that we’ve had the benefit of being deductible in he past.
 
welcome to the club-are you going to stay in california or truly get out of dodge to another state? we sold right before the bubble burst in '06 and haven't looked back. i get where you're coming on with the property taxes. despite the protections prop 13 put in back in the day it was still crazy how much we were paying there. where we live people gripe about property taxes but we just shake our heads b/c despite our current home's assessed value being about 20% higher than the assessed value of our house in california back in '06 we are paying 30% lower property taxes than we paid 12 years ago:faint: (and that's with a big bond that was passed a couple of years ago to fund massive building for the local school district).


i have to wonder what will happen with the housing market come next year-i think ALLOT of homeowners have their heads in the sand about the changes to tax deductions and will be in for a HUGE shock (as well as potentially a HUGE tax bill). so many people i knew were in a delicate balancing act of being able to pay their mortgages only b/c of the benefits of the now eliminated or greatly reduced tax write-offs.

We'd love to *really* get out of dodge, but have to stay in CA at least until DH retires and probably beyond as S21 is special needs, and he's tied to area. Prop 13 hasn't helped us much due to huge parcel taxes for our school district and improvements we've done to house.

Your last paragraph is exactly what I've been saying to my family and friends to explain our timing. We plan to sell early in the new year before April 15th. Head in the sand is right. There is going to be a lot of pain in places with high state and property taxes.
 
My husband and I moved from New Hampshire to Florida last October.

In New Hampshire, we had a beautiful town home that was almost 2000 sq feet. It also came with a hefty $2000 a month mortgage and a $7000 a year for property taxes.

We sold our beautiful home in New Hampshire and bought a 1972 double-wide mobile home in a 55+ community in Florida.

We gutted the whole house and put over $25000 into it. We put new floors, walls, driveway, screened-in patio, blinds, ac on our lanai, etc. It looks nice.

With the money we got from selling our home in New Hampshire plus what we had to put into it, we were able to buy our home for cash.

It feels good to be mortgage free. Thank goodness, no sooner than we got to Florida, than I lost my job and did not find one for almost 2 weeks.
How do you like the 55 plus community? We are flying to Florida in December to look at 20 55 plus communities... exciting!
Sounds like you have a beautiful place now!
Can you post some pics of your remodeled home?
 
You guys in Calfornia are LUCKY. You have ZERO grasp of what NY State Taxes are like. We pay almost $3.8k a MONTH in property taxes on a fairly modest home, and we still send our kids to private schools.
 
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Your last paragraph is exactly what I've been saying to my family and friends to explain our timing. We plan to sell early in the new year before April 15th. Head in the sand is right. There is going to be a lot of pain in places with high state and property taxes.

The biggest problem is RISING Interest Rates. People were used to Qualifying for loans at 3-3.5%, and are now expected to pay 5% for that same loan. A lot of people will not qualify for as much house because of the interest rate increase, and as such... will not have as much buying power. I think we are headed for a real slowdown in the housing market, and maybe a slight price DECLINE in some areas. There is a FLOOD of inventory on the market here in NY, which is also not great.

I'm curious to see how this will all pan out. We are not in for another 2008 Meltdown from a flood of foreclosures and ARM Adjustments, but... without EASY MONEY stimulating things, Market Appreciation will certainly soften. We've already established that our home will probably lose 5-10% of its value over the next two years. We are fine because we can wait out, and plan to sell in 7 years or so. Just wondering what some of our neighbors will do.
 

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