Background:
My wife and I saved up $45 k for a down payment on a $120 k condo and then paid off our $ 75k mortgage over the course of the next three years. Just got my deed in the mail. Feels good to be debt free (even though, yeah, I would have made more in the stock market, but oh well- hind sight is twenty twenty).
My wife just finished her PhD and has decided to accept a post doctoral position at WSU in Pullman. I'm betting we will stay for only one or two years, then we will move back to Alaska or maybe Seattle.
My wife is obsessed with buying a house (selling our condo and then paying cash) when we get down there. To me this is crazy- we may only be there for ONE YEAR. It seems obvious to me that we should rent, even though I hate renting and I love owning. There are a lot of emotions clouding both of our brains. She wants to get the fuck out of Alaska, and cut all ties. I absolutely hate realtors and think they are a scam, which is why I'm reluctant to put our condo on the market. Neither of us are thinking calmly.
If we pay cash for a new home, there will be no origination fee, but we are still going to pay several thousand in closing costs, right? Is there ANY scenario where you would buy a home in a town that you only intend to live in for one to two years? I mean, if you could be sure that values are going up, that would be one thing, but I keep trying to tell my wife that we really just got lucky with our current condo going up in value over the last three years.