Pete,
Thanks for your time!
First, excellent decision to move. If your job is solid, then you should live much closer to work. You may not like the next part of my answer, but I think it could save your financial life. Rent. You should move, and then either rent a house or apartment. In your email to me, you said that you are afraid you wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage right now. People love to try to trick a bank into giving them a mortgage. That always makes me think about a random person trying to convince an expert juggler to let the random person juggle knives. If you’re able to convince the juggler to let you juggle knives, who wins? Not you. High five! Sorry, you can’t. You cutoff your hand. When you try to trick someone into do something that you shouldn’t “be able” to do, you generally end up hurting yourself.
This that means that you shouldn’t force the issue and try to get a mortgage. You should rent for a couple of years and clean up the rest of the financial mistakes. Who is in a better position?
1. A person with a mortgage with $10k in credit card debt and $0 equity in their home.
2. A person who rents with no debt.
The answer is always #2. Always. I honestly think, given the information you’ve given me, you should sell your house, move closer, save money on gas, and rent.
Peter Dunn a.k.a. Pete the Planner® is an award-winning financial mind and a former comedian. He’s a USA TODAY columnist, author of ten books, and is the host of the popular radio show and podcast, The Pete the Planner Show. Pete is considered one of the foremost experts on financial wellness in the world, but he’s just as likely to talk your ear off about bass fishing.
Their is nothing wrong with renting, especially emotionally. I’m similar to your fan above… married, mom stays at home, solid six-figure job, long commute (only a few days a week thankfully) and two years ago we moved from our home we owned to a home we rented. The driving factor was to get out of the city, into the country, where our boys could run (as boys should do). We didn’t have the funds to own a home AND buy another. So we rented our home and became renters ourselves in the new home. And our quality of life went up. See, it was important to us to be in the country where our boys could be boys. We achieved that in renting. Emotionally, we were on cloud nine. And, we didn’t have the debt of two homes. Pete is right… a renter with no debt is RICHER than an in-debt homeowner in a home where value is decreasing, or increasing at a rate less than inflation (most of the USA). In full disclosure, we later bought that second home so we “felt” more in control. But, to this day… I strongly dislike owning two homes, even if we have a great renter in our other home. I’ve never met a rich landlord… ever. Good question. Great answer, Pete.
I sincerely believe that renting is what has saved us – not just financially – but emotionally, too!