I recently posted on here with a Reader Case Study and the comments got us (husband and I) thinking about selling our home and renting an apartment closer to our jobs in order to reach FI faster. I had written that we 'knew we did not want to retire in Florida' and we got some comments saying people didn't understand why we hadn't sold the home yet. Here are some facts:
Home: 3/2.5 bath townhouse, 1598 square feet. 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 4.25%, 28 years left. Bought at 123.5 and now have a balance of 112k. HOA: 1994/yr. Taxes (we claim homestead): 1700/yr. PMI: 1300/yr. Insurance: 1492/year. Value of the home has gone up to about 150k.
We had not discovered minimalism or MMM when we bought the home and were blindly following the American Dream of owning our own home. We planned to start a family as well, which for now has been placed on the back burner as we want to achieve FI first or be almost there some time after having our first (and only) child.
Now we are so excited about early retirement and would like to do so in 8-10 years. I am 31 and my husband is 28. We did some math and some preliminary research on Craigslist for apartments and know we would most likely to be able to rent a small apartment very close to our jobs (we work in the same vicinity) for 600-800 a month. If we did that, we would get rid of my husband's Jeep Cherokee and possibly my Honda Civic and buy one small vehicle, but bike or walk to work. This would reduce our spending several hundred dollars a month.
We realize that owning vs. renting is also an emotional decision, but we are willing to put that aside if the numbers were skewed towards renting for these next 8-10 years and maximizing our retirement accounts as well as investing 50k a year. We put an excel sheet together and we believe selling now and renting would maximize our savings and further minimize our spending so we can reach our goal faster.
Any thoughts?