I hate this *not knowing* stuff

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

(posted here rather than IMHO because I’m not necessarily looking for answers but I need to put this somewhere)

My husband’s job in an adjacent state is going very, very well. He got the job via networking…the company is a customer of my husband’s former employer, where he was laid off last spring after a project his team had been working on went south. The company has also been having financial issues, too, but that’s beside the point.

He rents an a apartment. He comes home every weekend. I can’t reciprocate because of my job’s hours and because the complex he’s in doesn’t allow dogs over 35 lbs (we have two huskies).

He took this job with the caveat that he’d be able to telecommute half time and be onsite the other time, which means he’d have to keep the apartment. So far his boss has been very meh about the telecommuting. He’s also said to my husband that since my employer is in the general area (albeit with a commute), I shouldn’t have any issues transferring so we – meaning me and the dogs – can move in with him.

We – er, I – own a house.

I don’t necessarily want to move, but I’ve talked about selling. It’s my childhood home, it needs work, I can’t afford to maintain it, we live in a VERY desirable area…but I’ve always lived here. I mean, I have nothing against where my husband is, but living down there FT?!?

My SIL was in a similar situation with her husband and his job. She ended up paying a penalty to break their lease so she could move to where he is because she couldn’t stand the uncertainty. I keep thinking, “But what if he gets laid off or something? You have nowhere to go.”

I’ve never moved in my whole life except for university and briefly on the other side of our state. Yes, I know this has a lot to do with it.

I just need to talk this out, so please indulge me :slight_smile:

2

Uncertainty about what to do is tough…it also is a chance to learn.

The only way to find out if moving is the right thing to do, is to do it.
You are already maintaining two places. Find a different apartment where your husband is and transfer your employment.

I find that as I get older, things like moving, with all of the attendant hassles, SEEM like they are harder. In reality they aren’t. You are smarter now than when you went to university, you should have more financial resources. The dogs will be fine.

Try it for a year or 6 months. Then you will know what is right.

3

Lease out your house. Find a new apartment down there (or house) and move.

I’ve moved a few times around the country with my husband (graduate school, post-graduate). Sometimes it has been wonderful and once it was horrid. We got through it together in all cases.

Be together and give yourself a chance to see what it’s really like. Leasing the house out means that nothing is permanent. Put most of yourself in storage if that helps. Change can seem hard, but sometimes it leads to wonderful things.

4

You could probably both live together on the income of just one of you, with a pretty decent level of comfort. If you want more comfort/wealth/opulence, you will need to earn the excess resources, and now you are discovering that sometimes there is a tradeoff for that.

The two most important things in life are Love, Money and Health. Any two will do,
and make up for a shortfall in the third one. If you have health, you don’t need both money and love to reach fulfillment. Choose one. Your jobs, or each other.

5

I guess…it’s the logistics which are bothering me. I’ve already been told that I’d probably would have to wait for an opening. How long that would be is up in the air (“So how do I remain on payroll?” “I honestly have no idea, that’s something TPTB would have to discuss.”) Not having the certainty of that paycheck triggers my paranoia button. Getting a dog-friendly bigger apartment? My husband can’t float it on his own, so we need my paycheck too.

We’ve discussed the possibility of my quitting my job outright and finding something in the new area, but we both know that finding something at the pay rate I make now will probably be close to impossible. I’m a vested, grandfathered, old-school FT worker, and therefore a rarity in the industry now.

6

That’s the other thing…my house needs work to bring it up to leasing/renting status. A LOT of work I cannot afford to have done.

I’ve never had to deal with real estate so this is whole new thing for me. One of my BILs says I should just sell the house “as is” outright and walk away. Part of me wants to do that but OTOH what if my husband loses his job? Then what? We’d had nowhere to go but back here…?

7

No, if he loses his job before you’re been transferred and moved, he moves back.

If he loses his job after you’ve been transferred and moved, you’re both living in the new place and your job is there.

You can prepare the move before getting the transfer, so you can move quickly once that’s finished. Some parts should be done before the transfer (getting the new place and part of the furnishings), some after. You can do a two-phased move: either move to the new place the minimum amount of Stuff he’ll need while he lives there on his own and the rest later (which gives you time to clean up, select and box properly what’s still in your house) or leave a minimum behind (which means the second move will be much quicker).

8

Do you own this childhood home outright?

If you can’t afford the maintenance and upkeep, then you need to sell it, as it is going to decline in value further without the needed maintenance.

What is it worth in it’s current condition?

What do you value more? Your marriage or your childhood home? If the former, then you need to be near your husband, and it sounds like you can do that and stay with your current employer.

9

Just spit-ballin’ here, so don’t put much weight into this…

Think outside the box. For the monthly rent on an apartment, you could probably find a damn nice used RV. He lives in that during the week, drives home on the weekend. You can visit with the hounds whenever you want.

He gets the boss to agree to the telecommute, cutting the back-and-forth somewhat. And you have a nice RV for travelin’! Probably get it paid off in a year or two, depending on how nice a one you pick.

Crazy as fuck, right? Yeah, I know. Forget I said anything.

10

I like this idea, not remotely crazy to me.

My self, i would not like much to give up my childhood home.

I would start making some financial plans to maintain it though.
I am not sure what the OP means by can not maintain it exactly.

11

If life were perfectly clear,
the future revealed through a curtain;
we’d still screw it up, my dear
of this I am perfectly certain!

12

He’s working on finding a new place. We initially fell in love with a development that’s literally across the street from where he’s living now. Unfortunately at the time they had nothing in his/our price range, but he’s kept in contact with the leasing agent. He received an email from her not long ago saying that there were some units in the price range coming up.

He moved in with a minimum of stuff, which was great because the apartment came semi-furnished (bed, TV, couch, dishware, utensils, etc.) A woman with whom I once worked who transferred from another location in another state lived in a bare apartment with her sleeping bag until she could afford to move her stuff. She quit when it became apparent that moving didn’t jibe with her work schedule. I’ve had other ex-coworkers who did the same. That scares me.

13

Yes.

I realize that. Property in my neck of the woods, however, tends to hold a lot of valuation because of location. A tear-down around the corner from me went for over 500K, for example.

I’ve always said that a house is a house but I’m running up against that “you’ll never live as cheaply as you do right now” because I have no mortgage. There’s a reason why people around here tend to inherit more than outright purchase, especially if they’re of modest means like myself.

14

Actually that’s not such a far-fetched idea. However, neither of us are the RV-ing type.

15

I make a very modest salary.

My property tax is just hovering around 7K this year and I’m still paying off last year’s as well as a water bill (we have one of the highest rates in the area).

I have longstanding water damage in one part of the house. I need a new roof. I just had to pay for a boiler repair. The house has “good bones” in RE parlance but nothing has been updated since the early 80s (my mother never did it because she couldn’t afford it). I need new windows , a lot of small repairs. I also need my plumbing replaced at some point.

Stuff like this adds up, as any homeowner could tell you. If my husband were a millionaire or something that’d be one thing but he isn’t. We aren’t by any means. And we’ve got a lot of company because for every family in the neighborhood who can afford a total makeover there are several of us who can’t. Most people who inherit remain in the house until they die, then the estate sells it.

16

You do seem to want to stay, yet you also say how much work the house needs…

How about you find a handy man type and rent to him? Half price rent with the rest taken out in trade. This will work best if you know this person.

Even without a mortgage you are maintaining 2 places… It might really be best to try the move for 6 months and eat the cost of a more expensive rental. If it works out, you sell the house. If it doesn’t, now you know…

17

kiz - If you have no mortgage, you should be able to afford a home equity loan to make needed repairs. Just $40,000 will have a payment of about a $300/month payment over 15 years, if you have decent credit. Make your repairs, rent the house out to cover the loan (and more), and the house there if you want to move back. Plus the updating will make it much more marketable if you decide eventually to sell.

And you might not normally be “RV people”, but you’re not using it as a tourist runabout, you’re using it as a short-term solution to an problem. There are plenty of people who live out of RVs because of a work situation. It gives more privacy than an apartment and is cheaper to rent a spot at an RV park than to get an apartment.

StG

18

This may sound weird because what you’re saying is plausible (and I’m pretty sure that’s what most people do). Taking my other monthly bills into consideration, I couldn’t afford $300/month on top of all that. That’s my issue.

And yes, I know there are side hustles and such but I have an ever-shifting schedule which means I couldn’t in good faith tell another employer for a PT position that I could work a set schedule for them. I had a coworker who tried this and ended up quitting per our employer’s request.

Am I making excuses? I supppose, to some, I am. I’m just laying my reality re this house thing out there.

19

I’m chiming in to agree with the RV idea. My husband is in the oil pipeline building business and often stays in a company owned trailer or RV when he’s on-site. Many of the crew own their own rigs and moves them from job to job. Every RV or trailer I’ve been in (and I’ve been in a LOT) has been livable with well designed storage cabinets and hutches. Many of them have also been very comfortable and attractive.

I’m not an RV person either, but living small during the week is much easier when you have a “real” home to enjoy on the weekends.

20

kiz - The home equity loan is if you want to put your house in shape to rent it. If so, your rent should far exceed the loan payment, giving you some extra income.

Frankly, you sound like you don’t want any options besides staying in your deteriorating house, with or without your husband. Sounds a bit Miss Haversham-ish.

StG