New home value has skyrocketed. Should we sell now?

Post date: 2021-10-24 16:30:44

We bought our house in March, 2021 and moved here from 1000 miles away. The value has gone up 35%. We know we don't want to stay here long term. Do we take the money and run? What is our sanity worth?

For starters, I loathe moving. We bought this house brand new and it was completed in the spring. It is a gorgeous home on an acre. When we bought it we thought we would stay in this state (Texas) long term. Then Texas went right off the deep end and we are now questioning the future here. My job is here and we have to stay for now.

I have posted about our yard issues before and we are looking at a $10k or so investment in the backyard in the spring. We want to get a shed. We still haven't put up any wall decor or anything because the yard was such a time suck earlier this year.

Why do we want to move? We are in the country. So far out we can't get broadband. We knew this when we closed (although not when we put a deposit down - this is definitely on me), but I didn't imagine it could be so bad in a subdivision of brand new homes in 2021 that is 6 miles from a reasonably sized town. We also can't *recycle*. We are so far from everything that we don't bother leaving the house during the week and going to Home Depot or Costco is an *event.* I will also have an absurd drive to work when the time comes, although thankfully only 3x a week.

There's of course other issues - we'd have to buy (or rent!) at the peak which would eat some of these profits, but we wouldn't buy a house that costs what this one would sell for - the price we paid at closing was already more than we thought we would ever pay for a house. We would look in an area where the market is already starting to slide a little. As far as tax concerns, my new office location is far enough away that we are within the safe harbor to avoid capital gains tax on the sale of the house.

Question: How does one balance mental health or well-being with the feeling that she is sitting on a literal pile of cash if she sells now? This is the third house I have bought and I have *never* not been upside down. Moving again after 8-9 months would no doubt be disruptive to us and our cats.

I have anxiety about money after being in an incredible amount of debt for a long time, and leaving any money on the table causes me to lose sleep. We are in a fine position financially so selling is not a *need*. I know this is a question that really doesn't have an answer. But we've been talking about this and we are just not sure what to do. Thanks as always for any thoughts!

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