This month marks 1 year since I closed on my townhouse. Which, of course, also means that I have now completed my first full year of mortgage payments - out of 30.
There's about a 0% chance that I will end up living here through the entire course of my 30-year loan. And I would like to think that I will be able to progress career and salary-wise to the point that I can pay off the mortgage earlier than that. But it's still a demoralizing thought that after all the work saving up for a down payment, and then the last 12 months of paying mortgage bills, I'm still so far from being able to say I truly "own" my house.
I used to think of a year as a long time. Now it's just a small step in a long climb back up to a debt-free life. Worse yet, if I look at how it breaks down in the amortization table, only about 20% of what I paid to the bank in the last year went to the house - the rest was just to pay off interest. Technically, the title of this blog shouldn't be "1 down, 29 to go", it should be more like "1.4% down, 98.6% to go".
On the plus side, I love home-ownership and I have no regrets whatsoever about signing my life away last year. It was scary at first, and sometimes still is. But overall, I do feel a good sense of accomplishment to get this far in my life. I can't recommend it enough to friends who are still deciding whether or not to take the plunge themselves, as long as you feel like you will be stable for a few years.
And for those of you who recently bought your first place, congratulations and welcome to the club!
*****
Edit: Link to article from DLo about what to consider when deciding between renting/buying
http://www.investorgeeks.com/articles/2006/05/23/renting-is-for-suckers/
