Ok, in my very first post I mentioned that I would talk about how I was able to keep my house in my divorce, so in today's post I'm going to make good on that promise.
When my ex and I decided to divorce (or rather, when my ex decided he no longer wanted to be married to me), I was convinced that there was no way I was going to be able to afford to keep the house we owned together.
To back up just a little bit, my ex moved out of our house in August of 2020. He needed to "think about things". Things between us hadn't been good for quite some time, although this decision still took me by surprise. After a little while, I told him that we needed to set a time frame for this period of separation, and I suggested that at the sixth month mark we needed to have a conversation about things. So in January of 2021, he told me he wanted a divorce.
I'm a planner, always have been. So once I knew that my marriage was ending, I went into planning mode. I reached out to a mortgage person I'd been introduced to through a friend of mine who is a real estate agent. She asked me a ton of questions, getting a sense of my finances and my priorities. I told her that if there was any way I could keep my house, that that was one of my top priorities.
When she told me that it seemed like it would be possible for me to keep my house, I thought it was too good to be true. There was a lot of back and forth, of course - these types of things aren't ever easy or simple - but in the end, she was right. I was able to buy my ex out of the house, and refinance the mortgage.
There were a few downsides, of course. My interest rate went up, which was a bit of a bummer, but it's still not a terrible rate, which is good. Because I had to pay my ex for his part of the house, I rolled that into the new mortgage, so the total amount of the mortgage went up, which also wasn't great.
But, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. The biggest benefit of all, of course, was getting to provide at least a small amount of stability for my kiddo, whose world had been completely turned upside down. This house is the only house my child has ever known, and I knew that (or at least hoped that) the familiarity would bring at least a small amount of comfort during this incredibly tough time.
When I initially spoke to the mortgage consultant, she asked me about my finances. Money had been a really big issue in my marriage. Before my ex moved out, I had started to try and get our finances in order, and after he left, I kicked things into high gear. I didn't have any credit card or student loan debt, and I decided I was going to save up and pay off my car. So when she asked me about all of those types of debts, I was able to tell her that I didn't have any of them. That was definitely helpful. I did have a HELOC (home equity line of credit), but I decided to pay that off with the refi. That was another great benefit - my ex and I had had the HELOC for a few years, and it seemed like it was taking a really long time to pay it off, so to be able to pay it off in the refi felt good.
I'm proud of myself for being a single homeowner, especially in the city where I live, where housing prices are HIGH. I do work a lot in order to afford my home, but for now, it's worth it. I do sometimes think about selling this house and moving to a new place, and what that type of fresh start would feel like. But for now, the best decision for me and my kiddo is to stay where we are. Especially since I'm actually in the middle of an unplanned renovation - but that's a story for another post. Stay tuned!
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