My DH and I are starting out on a journey to improve our finances. We have made so many financial mistakes that I'm not going to go into detail here but I need some advice on possibly selling our house. Just to give a quick financial backround, I stay at home to care for our 4 children ranging from 6mo to 6 years and DH makes 55-60K per year after bonuses. He is working on a finance degree hoping to open more job opportunities (his company covers the cost of tuition). We contribute to a 401K and that is our only retirement vehicle so far.. it's only got 20K right now and he is 31. I know early retirement with so many kids is never gonna happen but we would like to try to position ourselves to maximize his earnings so we can comfortably provide for our family now and in the future. I'll likely end up working part-time down the road when our kids are a bit older.. I have a degree but very little work experience.
We have a large home (5bd; 2500 sq ft) we purcased foreclosed in 2012. My mom loaned us the downpayment/closing costs and she moved in with us (very long back story here that I'm not going into) but after much tension we asked her to move out 2 months ago. We had to refinace to drop PMI and we decided to cash out some of the equity to consolidate our payments on our car loans, a small SL and credit cards and also to return my mom's downpayment. We left just enough equity for the 20% requirement to remove PMI. We now owe 197,000 and the house appraised for 265,000 though the houses continue to go up in value and housing websites are now saying its worth more. Our current house payment is $1214. The house needs a lot of updating and some repairs and if we stay here we will end up investing a lot into just basic fixes. It also sits on the back of a very busy street so I have a feeling it will be a tough sell whether it is all fixed up or not. It needs new carpet, paint, fixtures, front and patio door. The a/c and water heater are 15 years old and in fair condition. It also needs to be repainted on the outside. The entertainment built-in needs torn out (designed for older plasma tvs) and fireplace is broken. Also the bathrooms (4) need a lot of work. Two of the bathrooms have lanolium that is shot and the shower/bath inserts are quite worn. The countertops in the bath and kitchen are outdated and the cabinet doors need rehung as many are starting to come loose. We do not have the time to tackle these projects with so many little kids and DH working and in school. I kinda just want out of the house before it turns into a money pit! We enjoy having a large home but we don't necessarily love it and want to stay forever. We do appreciate the location and that it's zoned for quality schools. I'm considering homeschooling my kids in the future but still weighing the pros and cons of that.
We got a post card from Opendoor, a company that buys house with no relators or showings, and decided to get a quote. The offer was 257,000 and after fees and closing costs we would walk away with 36,000. They haven't seen the house so they may offer less but we don't know. I just have a feeling that this is going to be the best we can do. If we sell we need to downsize and rent because we aren't comfortable with a mortgage over 200,000K and those don't exist in our area right now. Rent runs about 1300-1400 to stay anywhere close to where DH works and within good school districts.
So should we take the money, start an investment account and rent, or should we stay put and keep fixing the house the best we can?
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions to clarify I will do my best to answer... Also I'm open to any other bits of advice on cutting costs, investments or whatever.