Hello, I am a first time poster.
Situation:
-age 39, female. Registered nurse, work part-time. Husband is 40, self-employed.
-30k in credit card debt.
-Homeowner. Have owned house for approximately 14 years. We will have house paid off in 3 years or so. We owe 13k.
-Income is around 65-75k/year, combined.
-Paid 105,000 for our house in 1998. Have house on market with real estate broker for 147,000. Will pay 6% of sale price when sold to broker(s).
-Moving because we have two school-age kids. Elementary school was fine. Eldest kid now in middle school (6th grade). School started last week. We applied to for a variance to go to a "better" middle school in the same district. Because of overcrowding we were denied. We appealed twice and were denied all times. Kid went to "bad" urban middle school last week. No problems really. He is in advanced classes. Many people in my neighborhood, and surrounding neighborhoods, lie to get into "better" schools in the same district. I was not comfortable doing that and decided to follow protocol and go the variance route. Because we were denied, we panicked a bit and put our house on the market.
-Inventory is low in the desired school zone in the same district. While our house is not the Taj Mahal, we like it. It's a nice house in a nice neighborhood. When we look at other houses in the "better school zone" they are much pricier and not in good shape. We would need to spend money on repairs.
-If we moved our quality of life would not change much. We would have a longer mortgage. I don't know if this financially responsible.
-I think kid would be fine at current middle school with bad reputation. None of his friends are there and the school has its share of problems. On the other hand, it's new and class sizes are small. We are not interested in private education (not much to choose from in our area). We aren't interested in homeschooling or virtual school. There are no magnets or charters. We live in Central Florida in a pretty large school district. There are three middle schools in my immediate area. My kid is attending the worst one. I would have to move or lie and produce fraudulent documents to get into desired school.
-Penalty to break contract is 500 dollars. Have been working with realtor for one week. She has been working hard and to complicate factors she is a neighbor (lives on same street in same subdivision) and acquaintance from high school.
-90% of me wants to break the contract and pay the 500 dollars and get my house off market. We received two solid offers the first day it was on market. We let those offers expire. They are still interested as far as I know and could submit new offers. We are in no hurry to settle or pay top dollar for a downgrade. Our kids are our first priority but it is painful to spend anywhere from 90-110k to get into another house. We will clear around 119,000 once we pay off house, taxes, real estate commission.
-the high-school we are currently zoned for has a bad reputation as well. We wanted to move to get into the "better" middle and high schools. None are perfect. The high-school we would like to move to is nationally ranked and has IB program, excellent athletics, arts, etc. It is overcrowded by 1000 students.
-What is the wise thing to do here? Move for the kids or stay put? I feel kids could get good education at current schools but we do want the best for them and are still uneasy sending them to current middle school. On the other hand, I want to stay in my house and pay off credit cards instead of mortgage. Any advice appreciated.