Hey, I think I was like you when I naively bought my house 11 years ago.
I'd been travelling around for about 12 months out of the previous 24 months. Then my mum died and it threw me for a curve.
Around that time my accountant a smart successful real estate investor then asked me if I wanted to buy her rental house that we'd once talked about me buying.
The house has 8 bedrooms and is in a fairly boring part of the city.. but my idea was to live in it and rent to roommates that were here in Vancouver from around the world to study English here. Then travel with the leftover rent after I'd paid all the bills.
So that's what I ended up doing, I bought the house in the quite boring part of the city and moved out fo my rental place a block from the beach and in the heart of the city and excitement.
My friends thought I was nuts, and after about a year of doing it I agreed with them! as it became this albatross around my neck. My travelling ground to a thumping stop! and my happy go lucky days said "see ya square pants, we're off to Thailand" and left me for good.
But I stuck with it and lucky for me in some ways that i did as I could sell it today for around 800 thousand more than what I bought it for.
However it's forever been a kind of 'weird' state of mind that I have to hold.
It's like there are so many little pros and cons that I find I have to constantly weigh up and find myself doing it all the time.
Pro's and cons are things like... the $ from roommates pay all the bills + mortgage and then some -v- the roommates are a pain in the butt sometimes -v- actually only 1 is a pain in the butt and a couple of them have become good friends, but the pain in the butt one is a real pain, but I need them to pay the bills. I have a great view off the back deck, a workshop, tons of space -v- my situation has changed since I bought it 11 years back, family has moved thousands of miles away and I feel stranded here.
I'd sell now BUT, the area is likely to be redeveloped and in that case I'll potentially get a huge windfall... it may even be a million bucks more. But it's kind of when and if and how long etc...
It kind of became that Pudding (that be me) was this happy go lucky guy, that travelled around and worked some but not too much..... he then stumbled naively into buying a big house and sort of put his own handcuffs on.
Being as he was he made the best of it, but due to the cuffs had to become this guy he wasn't really cut out to be. So sort of always trying to justify it to himself.
Then lady luck shone on Pudding and the property boom hit. But then family moved away for important work, pudding was alone in the city.... and still is.
I'd sell now and move closer to them, live a traveller life again from the proceeds of the house sale, but now it's become this high stakes game of cards where the pot potential from redevelopment is huge!
It's almost foolish to throw in the towel now! But as a travelling type yourself , it's like you compromise your life so much that it's sort of sucks!! and for adventure travel you can only be so old before you don't really want to do it.
Instead of being Mr 'wind in his hair' that's free and easy, I became Mr 'uptight' that mutters to himself about the neighbours parking outside his house and has to tell others in the house when they're being 'too noisy'
But I've also ended up with this really valuable asset.
Hoping to cash in soon and then live the life ;)
(starts to weigh all the 'pros' and 'cons' up again)