A dilemma....

[politicat]

As some of you may remember, my husband and I own two houses: mine, which I bought when I was single before we met, and his, which he and his ex bought and she left him with when she left him. For the first year we were together, we lived in both houses (mine during the week and his on weekends while we worked in renovating his), then we lived in mine for two years, while we had his on the market. When it did not sell in 2 years, we moved back into his house and rented mine out, the sales market being very soft at the time. We've been in the little house for a year and a half now. The market has improved, especially for midsized houses in decent neighborhoods in the county I live in.

I learned tonight that my tenants are moving out when their lease is up in July. The house will be fully empty and clean and tidy (that's part of the agreement) for the first time in several years.

We have several choices: We can keep both (not easy, but not impossible). We can sell the big house (mine) and keep the little one and move the little one (it's a mobile) to Boulder. We can move to the big one and try to sell the little one again. We can junk the little one and live in the big one. We can try to sell both. I don't want to be a landlord again; it's too much work with everything else.

So what would you do?

His is a mobile. Mine is not. His is smaller. Mine's nearly twice the size. Mine's efficient, closer to work and the things we prefer, but in a less attractive neighborhood. His we can move, and had been planning on moving. Mine's likely to sell within a year and we could move (as we'd planned) his to within 4 miles of both of our offices. Or we could junk his and just pay off the mortgage on his house and be done with it.

I find that I'm not overly attached to either house. I want out from under 2 mortgages in a big way, but they both have some charms and some iffy bits. My biggest concern is that we come up with a solution that improves our financial picture without requiring seriously huge amounts of work out of me.

Any ideas?

[Longhorn]

1. Instead of starting from the point of what to do with the houses,

I'd start with the ideal of where and how I want to live -- my dream situation considering finances, commute, neighborhood, lifestyle, etc. Then I'd go back and look at how I can use the houses to fit that ideal as closely as possible. Maybe looking at it that way, one house comes very close to fitting my ideal. If not, maybe selling both is the answer.

It's just another way of looking at the decision. Good luck! In many ways, it's a happy dilemma, since you do have choices and financial assets! :)

[DemBones DemBones]

2. You've said what I was thinking very well so

I don't think I have anything to add. I agree that it's a happy dilemma!