sirenia88
You are a Toy car!
- Joined
- May 25, 2004
- Messages
- 557
We are in a tough spot. When we bought our house in 2006 it was supposed to be a stepping stone. However 15 years later, we are still in the same house. The 2008 recession did have much to do with delayed moves. Now that my DD is going to be going into High School in September, we would have to stay in district for another 4 years. At that point it doesn't make sense to move. Our house is too small IMO. We have a small yard. No garage. 2 bed 1 bath which in the last 2 years, the 1 bath is getting old. (Traffic Jam in the morning 
) If we were to sell and move somewhere else in town, my current tax bill would go up 2/3rds or so. So I would go from around 6K to around 10K for a 3 bed 2 bath on 100 by 150 lot give or take. This would be for how long? After 15 years we have the current mortgage and bills down to a point in which I can stack extra money on them to pay it off.
To put it in perspective. The house in which my wife mainly grew up in and her dad still owns, is 2500 sq feet. 4 bed 2.5 baths. Cul de sac. Built in the late 70s. The lot is 150 by 100 by 50 in the front. Has all the same services we do plus better telecom access. He was telling my wife they (her dad and step mom) were thinking about moving to a 55 plus community as they don't need as much house plus all the kids are grown up. 2 bed rooms are not used and so on. The grand and great grandkids come over every so often from the stepmom side. Then on top of it, he was complaining about how the taxes when up and so on. So I said what are your taxes and what are your services. I said like 12 grand here. Remember I am from NJ. It would be around 10-12K for the house where I live. He laughed and said they were 3500 something. My jaw nearly hit the floor. My Father in law's area has pretty much the same services as my residence location and is just over a 1/3 less than what I pay. Larger property. More house. They are retired but still the area in which my wife grew up in is pretty much middle class planned development.
Where my parents live in Sussex County (NJ) they pay around 8K a year. They have no plans on moving though. They said they will deal with the higher cost of living in NJ only because they have lived here all their lives. My one uncle (mom's brother) did sell his place down in Jackson about 6 years ago. Sold it for a song in today's market. Back then it went for a reasonable price but if my aunt was alive she would have gotten more for it. Private 14 acres. Farm assessed with a viable farming operation. It was an old cranberry bog. He harvested and sold fire wood. Raised chickens, ducks and geese over the years. Raised Koi in the pond. Grew veggies. Did it for almost 25 years at that point. He wanted to keep the property but could not find a care taker for it. The taxes on the property were super cheap since it was farm assessed was one of the reasons on why he wanted to keep it. Basically if he could get a care taker for the property, it would have been low cost living for them plus the sales from the farm side would have covered the taxes. At one point he was talking to a landscape firm about renting the property from him but the deal fell through. This company wanted a place to store the equipment and have greenhouses to grow plants. My uncle had most of the infrastructure in place which made it appealing to this company. When I was younger, I always spent a few weeks on the farm with them. It's was a blast. Go shooting one afternoon. Work on the tractor for a few hours pulling logs out of the woods. Chopping firewood. It took my uncle 4 large sales to basically sell everything off from that property. He now lives in Florida with his companion. When you are 70+ and have a lady friend for 7 years it is silly to say girlfriend LoL.
) If we were to sell and move somewhere else in town, my current tax bill would go up 2/3rds or so. So I would go from around 6K to around 10K for a 3 bed 2 bath on 100 by 150 lot give or take. This would be for how long? After 15 years we have the current mortgage and bills down to a point in which I can stack extra money on them to pay it off.To put it in perspective. The house in which my wife mainly grew up in and her dad still owns, is 2500 sq feet. 4 bed 2.5 baths. Cul de sac. Built in the late 70s. The lot is 150 by 100 by 50 in the front. Has all the same services we do plus better telecom access. He was telling my wife they (her dad and step mom) were thinking about moving to a 55 plus community as they don't need as much house plus all the kids are grown up. 2 bed rooms are not used and so on. The grand and great grandkids come over every so often from the stepmom side. Then on top of it, he was complaining about how the taxes when up and so on. So I said what are your taxes and what are your services. I said like 12 grand here. Remember I am from NJ. It would be around 10-12K for the house where I live. He laughed and said they were 3500 something. My jaw nearly hit the floor. My Father in law's area has pretty much the same services as my residence location and is just over a 1/3 less than what I pay. Larger property. More house. They are retired but still the area in which my wife grew up in is pretty much middle class planned development.
Where my parents live in Sussex County (NJ) they pay around 8K a year. They have no plans on moving though. They said they will deal with the higher cost of living in NJ only because they have lived here all their lives. My one uncle (mom's brother) did sell his place down in Jackson about 6 years ago. Sold it for a song in today's market. Back then it went for a reasonable price but if my aunt was alive she would have gotten more for it. Private 14 acres. Farm assessed with a viable farming operation. It was an old cranberry bog. He harvested and sold fire wood. Raised chickens, ducks and geese over the years. Raised Koi in the pond. Grew veggies. Did it for almost 25 years at that point. He wanted to keep the property but could not find a care taker for it. The taxes on the property were super cheap since it was farm assessed was one of the reasons on why he wanted to keep it. Basically if he could get a care taker for the property, it would have been low cost living for them plus the sales from the farm side would have covered the taxes. At one point he was talking to a landscape firm about renting the property from him but the deal fell through. This company wanted a place to store the equipment and have greenhouses to grow plants. My uncle had most of the infrastructure in place which made it appealing to this company. When I was younger, I always spent a few weeks on the farm with them. It's was a blast. Go shooting one afternoon. Work on the tractor for a few hours pulling logs out of the woods. Chopping firewood. It took my uncle 4 large sales to basically sell everything off from that property. He now lives in Florida with his companion. When you are 70+ and have a lady friend for 7 years it is silly to say girlfriend LoL.
