en Passant

My wife and I were recently considering the purchase of a new home in our area. We went through a million what-if scenarios about the new home, laying out the pros and cons of the house, or current place and all the financial concerns involved.

While running all the numbers, I was constantly faced with numerous calculations. Going out to a mortgage calculator wasn't always the favorable solution. That is why I worked up this Excel spreadsheet to calculate various scenarios (what if our house sold of 10% more? What if we qualified for a 45year fixed loan? what if we paid off the car? )

The attached spreadsheet is the result of that process. You will need to populate the various 'yellow' fields with:

• The price of your new home
• A comparable price you can sell your existing home for
• How much you still owe on it
• Interest rates and terms for your market
• Appropriate taxes and fees for your new neighborhood (like Mello Roos).

Our final deal-breaker on this house was a suggestion from a Realtor that we trust. She suggested waiting for the local market to improve so that our house would sell for a bit more. That would help us put down a larger down payment on the new place and lower the monthly bills.