[jims69camaro]

just a little history, since everyone is citing prices from just a few years ago. my wife and i were married in '97. at that time, she was renting a 2 bedroom apartment for $730 a month. i started checking out home rentals, because the 4 of us wouldn't have done too well in such a cramped space (the two of us and her two sons).

i found the house we're in now, and the rent was only $700 a month. seemed like a crazy deal to go from an apartment to a house and pay less per month, so we jumped on it. now, the house was far from new or modern - the last thing upgraded was the carpeting, and it must've happened after the homeowner left the property and before we looked at it. it had a newer furnace and hot water heater (within 5 years, they said) so we weren't expecting anything to go wrong. we bought a fridge and moved in.

now, with a 30 year old house, little things started to go wrong. i started nickel and diming the rental agency for things that needed to be repaired. all of a sudden, after about 6 months of renting, and the faucet in the kitchen going bad, there was a note included with the reimbursement check that said, "do you want to buy the house?"

we had not considered it up until that point, but the asking price was in the right neighborhood at $95,000. we ended up with a loan for $73,000 and $13,000 instant equity (paper downpayment). i was thrilled. a coupla years later, we refied for a lower interest rate, which dropped our payment drastically. instead of just pocketing the money every month, we decided to pay off the principal with it instead. so, each month we are paying an extra $200 on the principal with the monthly mortgage being right around $700. from the start of the loan until the last payment was scheduled to be 15 years, as well - much better than a 30 year note and the interest rate is stable (no ARM here). since we bought the house i have upgraded both the kitchen and the bathroom and put a new roof on it.

now, knowing how much the house is worth makes the plans to move out of this godforsaken state/country even more possible, regardless of the size of the check in the insurance settlement. alright, i'm all typed out. phew.