Here's the deal

After over a year of debate and conversation dedicated to the housing market and our current mortgage we finally decided to throw our caution, fears, and regrets to the wind and put our house up for sale.

Just to see what might be possible.

We bought our home in 2006 just as the market began to crash. We sold our first house and moved into our second ignoring the recommendation of our mortgage broker who, at the time, was making his best effort to discourage us from buying.

We should have taken the hint.

Over the last 5 years the value of our home has depreciated. It is now worth close to 150,000 less than what we bought it for.

Depressing.

We're about to own the worst financial decision that we've ever made. We're short-selling this house and we made it official on Tuesday.

There are so many reasons why we want to move, I mentioned some of them last year in a tour of homes post.

We've now lived in this house for almost 4 years, and when the market turned our mortgage flipped upside down. In truth, we do not love living in the suburbs. And we especially dislike paying an inflated mortgage! We've realized through this experience that we are city folk, and that we thrive on access to good food, entertainment, and culture, and that we HATE long commutes, traffic jams, and not having outdoor spaces in which to stretch our legs.

If we could do it all over again, hands-down we would choose an older, smaller house closer to where we like to work and play. Especially now that we have children to consider. There's nothing worse than having the world at your fingertips (i.e., Washington DC adventures), but finding yourself trapped behind 2 hours of bumper to bumper traffic. We would love the opportunity to have an intimate relationship with the area in which we live, and to explore our community on foot. Furthermore, it would be awesome to live in an area where a true sense of community actually existed.

While those reasons are still true--save a few of the details--they aren't the reasons we're taking action now.

In short, we've come to terms with the fact that this house just wasn't a good investment. Yeah, we bought it to live in it, not just to make money, but still. It's a money suck that will require years before it is even worth what we paid for it.

We're cutting our loses and moving on.

Of course, the bank has the final say, but the hard part is over--the house is under contract--now we just wait.

With the prospect of not being tied to any one place, or tied down by a comical mortgage payment, we will be free to follow bigger dreams. I cannot wait!