More Mortgage Musings

When my job is slow and boring I like to scheme different ways to pay off my mortgage so that I can have job freedom. Today I was adding up anything that I could sell or cash-in to add to the principle. If I sold my misc. stocks worth about $5,000 (they were worth that last year, this year is another story), and sold my RV worth around $8,000, and sold anything that I didn't need anymore...I'm estimating $4,000, plus borrowed $5,000 from my emergency fund (without a mortgage I could pay it back quickly, right?), it would STILL take 2 and a half years to pay off my mortgage with renters. As tempting as 2 1/2 years is I couldn't do it. That is still too long to live in my icky, drafty, leaky, electrically questionable mobile home. And that is too long to go with such a low emergency fund. If I could sell all of that stuff and pay off my mortgage tomorrow I would do it. The only way I could do that is to sell a piece of my property but I am not willing to part with it. I want to sell the HOUSE not the property. Maybe in 2 1/2 years the housing market will be better and I can sell the house. Then I will be rid of the mortgage and I won't have to sell my RV, stocks, extra stuff or borrow from my emergency fund.

I bought the house for $131,000, 3 1/2 years ago. Houses like it were selling for $185,000 at the peak of the market. Now the Zillow estimate is $171,000. That's not too bad. I wouldn't want to sell it for that right now but a lot of houses have lost a lot more value than mine. I would be happy to sell it for $180,000 in 2 years but that is probably unrealistic. I might just have to keep it as a rental for a few more years.