Mrs Axe and I have enjoyed our lavish living arrangements for the last five years, but with little Axe going off to college in the fall, we really don't need this much house. We bought in the winter of 2010 for 341k. In 2013 when I was working in Honolulu for a year, we tried to sell it unsuccessfully for $350k. Had about 20 showings but no offers - which made us think it was overpriced.
A few weeks ago I put a Zillow "make me move" of 300k up. We got four calls on it over the next couple of days. A buyer's agent came by in person to ask about the house. I told him I'd give him 3% if he delivered a buyer. We showed the house the next day and got an offer for the full asking price of 300k the following day. We just did the inspection yesterday and we're waiting for the punchlist of buyer requests. Don't expect anything too dramatic as we've maintained the house pretty well. The buyers are a nice, young couple and the location is halfway between their opposite-located jobs. They like the gardens and fruit trees a lot, it's really perfect for them.
We're planning to be in the area until 2020 when we'll FIRE - we'll be 49. We talked about finding an investment property - maybe a duplex or something we could live in for a year or two, and turn into a rental. Hopefully closer to our jobs. Because of the short timeline, we rented a place on 200 acres nearby for $1500 for six months. The owner is in his 80s and rents out a couple cottages and two apartments in a beautiful barn. We have 200 acres of farmland to enjoy and no maintenance headaches. Our 20 year mortgage was previously $3100 a month with insurance, property taxes etc. rolled into it (we paid $8k a year in county and school taxes). Our new apartment has a wood stove and the fuel oil heat is split 40/60 with the upstairs apartment (we pay the 40%). So, heating costs should go way down for us, too. Our current savings is ~10k a month, this should push us to ~12k.
This gives us a base of operations to work from, and we'll start looking for a SFH or duplex investment property that we can fix up in the 80-100k range. If we can manage that, it will help balance out our FIRE goals with some passive income. Mrs Axe is very handy and is contemplating leaving her job once we have a property closed, to focus on the improvements. I'll help out weekends and after work. It will be a fun project to spend our empty nest time doing.
We're also taking this opportunity to downsize our belongings. I got rid of 40 years of books this week through library donations and made $250 from Bookscouter (iphone app that helps sell books online). We'll be selling some of our furniture (don't need my bookshelves anymore, lol) and other stuff, too. After Hawaii, we realized how little our "stuff" contributed to our happiness, so we're attacking the problem with great enthusiasm.
Really looking forward to the new adventures and bumping up our savings rate. We still have a lot of improvements to make to be more Mustachian, but I'm happy to get rid of the big house and big mortgage and focus on a more affordable property that we can have paid off in a few years.
