raisins

Just go where you will be happy. If you are happy then you can deal with commutes, traffic, insane housing prices, taxes…there is poison everywhere, you get to pick yours.

nene

That's why you roll your acquired equity into your new house, yes the overall bill will be larger, but if it is the place for you to grow your family, lay down roots. Time will pass and the mortgage will seem less and less and with some extra payments you may even retire it earlier than you planned.

If all heck breaks loose and you feel overhoused, you can dump the place with the equity you have already involved but chances are slim that will be the outcome unless you are being completely overleveraged.

It really comes down to where do you want to live?

Hotel Kilo

I always enjoy your posts here, and it doesn't surprise me that you are posting here looking for a sounding board of sorts. Nothing wrong with that. As a long time person in this biz I'd say a couple of things. 1) Do whats best for your family first. 2) Your QOL. 3) Your earnings. I've been a commuter most of my time here save for a few years I lived in base (which Delta subsequently closed). That forced a move to where we are at now and we haven't looked back.

I hate commuting, not gonna lie. Hate it. With a passion. However, where we've been at we live in a great area, great schools (we put our kids thru private schools though, but still all said, the schools around us are very good), have great neighbors and a very good sense of community. My wife has made long term friends here. She's engaged locally with many of the local civic groups. We grew roots here as a family and I never thought once about uprooting that tree just to make my life easier. So I commute, and I hate it, but my family is happy (just me and wife now as the kids are all grown up and on their own).

Living below your means - yes. I've done this my entire career. It's not hard. No boats, no planes, we only own one house, and its paid for many many years ago. I do have hobbies, they are just not the expensive kind (guess Im lucky in that regard??). The best advice from me, as a long term player in this game - Live below your means, keep your family happy best you can and retire still married to your first wife.

Best of luck to with you and your families decision, and I mean that sincerely.

ThumbsUp

I was just using that as an example. Sounds like you need to make a spreadsheet of your expenses. An FO at the top of the pay scale making 250-300k/year can afford a 72k annual expense on housing, max the 415C limit, contribute to a back door roth for both you and your spouse, plus save for college and pay off some extra on the mortgage.


There is a lot of slack in there. If they are furloughing senior FOs, the black swan is so deep that you probably need to worry more about how much ammo you have.

VacancyBid

That pushes strongly towards moving. Lot can change in 10-15 years and better to move while it's easy.

High housing costs are ... high. But some of it is forced savings - at the end of it you do have a much more valuable house for that increased payment. You may also see better appreciation.

Thoughts
1) Living in base gives a lot more options for dealing with financial surprises
2) Consider moving into a starter house that will be ok for 12-36 months. Rent it out after that and buy the big house.
3) As noted above, $6k/month for a house isn't cheap but I'd call it within your means. Pay down the prinicipal ASAP and you can reduce some of the interest expense.

Name User

I'm old enough that I saw 9/11, age 65, financial crisis, post recession oil boom, and covid. If there is anything history teaches us, it's that it will repeat itself.

My personal opinion is anything above $3k monthly PITI and >15 years is asinine. You're locking yourself into a careers worth of high payments. Note: this assumes you're the breadwinner, and your wife isn't an ER doc.

Just IMO but it's far better to life frugally in this career and, when the time comes, purchase what you want wish cash than it is to purchase on a monthly payment. That goes for anything - home, vacation condo, vehicles, boat, airplane, other toys, etc. Keep in mind, nicer things cost more to insure, maintain, and come with higher property taxes as well.

The happiest people I've known in this job owned everything they had outright without payment. I can promise you, your kids dgaf if you have a million dollar home in a wealthy zip code.

CX500T

$3000 PITI will barely break 400k in most areas and that's with putting 20% down. That's at 1.5% property tax and 0.5% insurance. Florida/Flood zones? Even worse.

Granted I look at things through a Delta lens, but for us, you aren't getting squat in any of our pilot bases save Detroit for that. Crack house in the hood or a single wide on sone acreage maybe but a decent 3 bed 2 bath with non war zone schools?

Nope. Not gonna happen.

Reassigned4

Not much to add other than we’re in the same boat as you and decided to make the move now. ~ 20% FO and our current mortgage is $1500/ mo. And we traded that for $4300/ mo. It was tough to stomach the idea of that, but we got a new build on some land an hour from work in a nice area. We had outgrown our old house and it was time for a move so we figured now was the time before our kids are school aged.

The prospect of 30+ years commuting isn’t a fun one and moving to base is only a 4.5 hour drive from our hometown. I suppose time will tell if we made the right call, but so far so good. Good luck.

sailingfun

You lump a home which is an appreciating asset into the same bucket as toys and depreciating assets. Thats a big mistake. Home ownership at the upper end of what I could afford is what set me up for a great retirement. Real Estate be it the house you live in or investment property should be a part of your long term financial strategy. A mortgage leverages a lot of potential profit before you even consider the fact you have to pay to live somewhere be it rent or a monthly payment. All in I have not paid a dime to live in great houses the last 30 years. Appreciation has exceeded my payments. It set me up in retirement to be free of all house payments and own a nice vacation home to go with my primary residence. Equity also aided getting my kids through college during the bankruptcy.
When you look at a monthly payment look at the difference between the payment and renting. Keep in mind most payments go down over time via refinancing while rent only goes up. Now add in potential equity growth. 4% is about the average over time. That 4% in a house compounds like a savings account. On a 1 million dollar home your getting 40,000 a year to start compounding to higher amounts over time. There is no need to live in a shack. Put your family in a descent home.

ThumbsUp

Yeah and add a 15 year rate onto that and you are definitely talking trailer category in most of the country.