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Wow, thanks for all the replies! And so sorry I missed them, I didn't think my question got posted so I didn't check back.
Some answers.
To review, we bought a third house for us and our teen daughters. I agreed to move from my house so the girls could remain in high school and not move. So I have a house and she has a condo, and we are renting them out.
We don't argue about the issues but just disagree on the approach to move forward. Discussions are not disrespectful.
She was making $40K with benefits, but with the new American economy, she was let go so the company could replace her with low wage, no benefit, part time workers. So she did qualify to buy a $250K house near the height of the market (2005?). It is probably worth $225K now, and she only has $5K equity in it. I am afraid it will crash in value again, as it dropped to around $170K around 2009. I want to sell it to simplify our lives. We talked socially with a friend with financial knowledge, and he suggested we should sell it to avoid a housing downturn, and also because the upside is minimal. This was before he knew my opinion and she bought in to the idea. Doesn't make sense to her if I say it though- that's marriage, haha!
Neither of our companies offer 401K plans. So I guess she rolled her old 401K into an IRA. I don't have one. Sorry for my ignorance on 401K/IRA.
Renters are great and cover only the mortgages and general expenses. But I don't like the risk of bad tenants. My rental house has a new nightmare issue that makes it hard to sell right now. The common drive agreement expired and the eight households have split on how to proceed, so we have lawyers involved. It may be close to being resolved, but need to see if the stakes get raised again. I plan to put it on the market in June if this gets resolved. Yes, it is insane/stupid that eight homeowners let the agreement expire but that's a bashing for another day.
So I'm pretty exhausted with my intense job, long commute, and dealing with three properties. If I sell the two rental properties, I think my debt problems go away with the equity I will get. Then I can put max into an IRA every month. This is the easy solution.
But, I can't be certain I can unload both house/condo this year, so I will plan for this. Stop spending, get an emergency act, and make max payments to credit cards, should be able to do $2K month. I will look into an IRA but may not start saving yet.
I will sit down with the wife and write out our goals and define spending expectations for 2017.
Thank you all for replying. I appreciate the advice and tough love. It really helped me get focused on our issues. It's easy to put it off and avoid, but I will take action.
Happy New Year!
Wow, thanks for all the replies! And so sorry I missed them, I didn't think my question got posted so I didn't check back.
Some answers.
To review, we bought a third house for us and our teen daughters. I agreed to move from my house so the girls could remain in high school and not move. So I have a house and she has a condo, and we are renting them out.
We don't argue about the issues but just disagree on the approach to move forward. Discussions are not disrespectful.
She was making $40K with benefits, but with the new American economy, she was let go so the company could replace her with low wage, no benefit, part time workers. So she did qualify to buy a $250K house near the height of the market (2005?). It is probably worth $225K now, and she only has $5K equity in it. I am afraid it will crash in value again, as it dropped to around $170K around 2009. I want to sell it to simplify our lives. We talked socially with a friend with financial knowledge, and he suggested we should sell it to avoid a housing downturn, and also because the upside is minimal. This was before he knew my opinion and she bought in to the idea. Doesn't make sense to her if I say it though- that's marriage, haha!
Neither of our companies offer 401K plans. So I guess she rolled her old 401K into an IRA. I don't have one. Sorry for my ignorance on 401K/IRA.
Renters are great and cover only the mortgages and general expenses. But I don't like the risk of bad tenants. My rental house has a new nightmare issue that makes it hard to sell right now. The common drive agreement expired and the eight households have split on how to proceed, so we have lawyers involved. It may be close to being resolved, but need to see if the stakes get raised again. I plan to put it on the market in June if this gets resolved. Yes, it is insane/stupid that eight homeowners let the agreement expire but that's a bashing for another day.
So I'm pretty exhausted with my intense job, long commute, and dealing with three properties. If I sell the two rental properties, I think my debt problems go away with the equity I will get. Then I can put max into an IRA every month. This is the easy solution.
But, I can't be certain I can unload both house/condo this year, so I will plan for this. Stop spending, get an emergency act, and make max payments to credit cards, should be able to do $2K month. I will look into an IRA but may not start saving yet.
I will sit down with the wife and write out our goals and define spending expectations for 2017.
Thank you all for replying. I appreciate the advice and tough love. It really helped me get focused on our issues. It's easy to put it off and avoid, but I will take action.
Happy New Year!
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