Gulp!

We were walking around the neighborhood the other day when we saw a vacant house with a "for sale" flyer in the window. This home, the same model as ours but with an additional bedroom, was for sale for a price 180,000 dollars less than the amount I owe on my house.

That's a big chunk of change.

I'm confident that the housing market will eventually rebound and values will start to climb again. And I won't owe what I owe now forever. I'm paying down the principle on the mortgage a little bit every month.

But still!?!

What if I wanted to move? What if I had to move? We can't. We're stuck. For a while anyway. Fortunately I like my neighbors. I hope they like me because we are going to be here for a while.

If I had known the future, I would have sold our previous house and moved into an apartment, saving our profits and putting a little more away each month. And then when the bottom fell out of the market, I would have swooped in and purchased a really nice house, in a great location, for a bargain price.

But I can't see the future.