I almost wish I had not taken a look at my financial situation today because I found out that we will owe about $700 in taxes next year when we are used to getting a refund and I also found out our house is worth almost $8,000 less than I thought it was. I'm trying to remain optimistic, knowing Zillow is not official and it could bounce back as fast as it dropped. However, I'm still in a bad financial mood.
One thing that makes me feel a little better is to take a look back at how far we have come in 6 months. Just a little over 6 months ago, we owed $208,786.14 on our house and as of today we owe $183,985.87. So we have paid the mortgage down $24,800.27 in six months! Even though we used some savings, vacation money, and a work bonus my husband received, we still did a good job paying that down. Six months ago I had said I wanted to have the mortgage paid down to $200,000 by September 2011 - well I more than surpassed that goal!
One of my initial reactions to finding out about the house value was I should immediately start paying extra on our main mortgage. However, values change so much it could bounce back fairly quickly, and right now it's a small enough amount if we needed to sell, we could cover the extra still owed. It's not super likely we will be moving anytime soon, but my husband has been casually looking for a new job. Most of the jobs he has applied for have been in the same area we live now, but he has not ruled out looking for a job in another state (to be closer to his family). So right now I just plan on continuing everything as planned. The mortgage principal is decreasing by $250 every month as well, so every 4 months it'll be $1,000 less. I'm hoping it just works itself out.
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