Hi Clever Mustachians,
The area we live in (Boston) has extremely high real estate costs and they have been going up-up-up for the past 5 years or so. Our family of 3 (daughter starts Middle school this fall) owns a 925-sf two-bedroom one-bathroom condo, and we would love to upgrade to a single family. Living with the third set of neighbors with screaming toddlers in the unit above us is wearing our stoicism thin!
We live in a popular town that has high demand and low offerings for real estate, particularly in a Mustachian's price range. $600k is considered entry level home!!! Surrounding towns are even worse; and to get a decent priced home we'd have to move even further from work (my commute on combo commuter train, subway, and walk is already about 1 hour each way). Houses get snapped up after the first showing with bidding wars going; and contractors pay cash for the slightly cheaper fixer-uppers; so our chances of buying a decent home for less that $600,000 are not that great.
Should we sell our condo first (possibly netting $180 - $200k) and then hope and pray on scoring a single before we close the sale on the condo; or should we buy a single first with 10% down payment and then sell the condo, adding the net proceeds to the mortgage principal? The risk of not selling our condo is in my mind much lower than the risk of not being able to buy a single... but our realtor advises us differently. I'd hate to lose our condo and have to settle for a crappy home just because the timing was not right.
Are we being crazy for even trying? Does anyone have tips on buying in such an overheated market? Should we sit and wait for the bubble to burst (it has happened), or should we move somewhere else - Longmont, CO comes to mind ;-)
I hope you guys could give me some mustachian advice, encouragement, and perhaps tough love.