On this day five years ago, I closed on my house and it was relatively painless despite signing a piece of paper stating I’d be paying this off for the next 30 years. Thanks to an extra payment a year for three years, we stopped that in 2005 when we planned on moving to Phoenix, I now only have 22 years remaining on the mortgage. Also by my math, I own 14.7 percent of the place. According to the property tax estimate I received this Spring, I have now lost seven thousand dollars in equity (potential profit in plain English) since then but I don’t really care, the plan is to stay put and it’s still cheaper, smarter and better than renting. I even receive a tax refund thanks to having this house.
Another odd factoid I realized is that my house is the longest residence I’ve ever had in my life, five years. It used to just be the record holder for Austin when it exceeded three years and a month, formerly held by my apartment in Hyde Park (a neighborhood north of UT). I also stupidly thought the apartment was the record holder. Nope. The house my family lived in from March 1979 to August 1982 way back in Springfield, IL was the champ to beat with three years and five months. I don’t know how I forgot that place. Maybe I was trying to block out the uglier memories of seeing it in 1983.
If I could do it over, would I still buy this place? Pretty much. I only regret I didn’t snag a house sooner. I may have been able to buy some place closer to Austin or have one built like this for under $100,000. Pflugerville (silent P) isn’t so bad too. It’s the first suburb on Austin’s northeast side, parts of it are just across I-35, less than two miles away making it a short drive to the more desirable northwest side. Depending upon the traffic, downtown can be reached within 30 minutes which you can’t say about Houston, Dallas, San Antonio or the bigger cities I’ve lived near. No matter how stressful home ownership can be, even when the Reign of Terror bugs me, aka the Homeowner’s Association, it will always beat moving every year or paying a pet deposit.