BAD BAD GIRL - NO LOOKING AT HOUSES!!!

After finding out that to rent a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment with a 1 stall garage will run $775 per month to start, I am really rethinking homeownership.

Currently We have a four bedroom 3 bath home with triple garage with a 132K mortgage with a value between 179K and 209K the reason for the range is our basement is about 90% finished and we have not had a RE Agent in to give us a market value, currently the 209K is what our insurance says our house would cost to rebuild not including lot since if a fire happened we would not need to replace the lot.

I want a smaller mortgage as our current mortgage including taxes ran 1190 per month this years I paid off our specials this year and so our taxes should go down thus our monthly payment should go down by like 100 per month.

I keep thinking if we could take our equity and apply it to a cheaper home we could get smaller payments. I want a house in the 125K to 145K range. I think that would get us to around or lower than the $775 rental price.

So as I am looking at homes online and thinking yes I could deal with that horrible paint job, paint that brick fireplace, oh that waterheater is going to have to be replaced for a bigger one; I imagine the cheaper mortgage and smile.

Then low and behold I find a newer home, much like our home but on a smaller lot but without a sprinkler system, without the walkout basement, not on a cul-de-sac, with only two stall garage and with one less bathroom on the main floor. It has a unfinished basement.... The price is 149,900 which is 22K less than what we paid for ours when we had our basement unfinished.

I think to myself does the basement have the plumbing in the walls and the toliet drain hole in the floor? I want this home, I want to take the about 77K equity we have in our home and apply it to this new house and have a 73K mortgage.

But sadly I know that we have to sell our home first and I am sure that by the time our basement is finished and our home is sold it will be gone. It just motivates me to get the contractor here that much more so that maybe just maybe we can sell our home and get this new one.

I want the lower mortgage but I also like the chance to get the finish the basement equity on the new house, I also like that it is very similiar to our home. Of course the first thing we would have to do is install a sprinkler system and build a shed.

TO DO:
Stop looking at house!
Call our repair guy and find out when he is coming to sheetrock the ceilings and finish the closets and the minor repairs.