The Great Money Reset: Change Your Work, Change Your Wealth, Change Your Life by Jill Schlesinger

Author:Jill Schlesinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

An Exciting New Life Down on the Farm

Marilyn had a particular dream in mind: retiring to Florida. What if you want to make a change but you don’t yet know what you want out of life’s next chapter? Can buying or selling real estate still make sense?

Tom and Pam, a married couple from suburban Pennsylvania, would answer with a resounding yes. As front line healthcare workers (Pam is a nurse, Tom a physical therapist), the two were feeling burned out in their careers, having witnessed the horrors of the pandemic firsthand. Adding to their stress, the couple felt exhausted from running on what seemed like a financial treadmill. They were swimming in debt, making payments on their mortgage, a home equity loan, their kids’ student loans, and significant credit card balances. To crack their monthly nut, Pam would often feel compelled to take on overtime shifts at the hospital. “It just made work more miserable,” Tom said. “I would see Pam not only come home from having a tough day, but then it’s like, man, we just can’t get out from underneath the debt. That was the ongoing thought. It was just a grind, and you’re like, ‘Oh, well, just grind through this for the next ten or fifteen years.’”

One day, Pam overheard some colleagues at the hospital remarking on how hot the real estate market was in their area and how hard they were finding it to buy a home. That same day, she suggested to Tom that they put their house on the market. As she pointed out, their three kids were grown and out of the house, so they had more freedom. With interest rates low and sellers wielding overwhelming power, this was their chance to get out of the grind.

Although Tom tended to be a bit more hesitant to make big moves, he was in. If they sold their home for an attractive price, they could pay off all of their debt and lower their financial stress. That in turn would allow them both to work less and to spend more time pursuing their interests.

They called their real estate agent and a couple of weeks later put their house on the market. It sold almost immediately, furniture and all, at $40,000 over their asking price. The next question was: Where would they go? They didn’t know. I know that sentence might sound crazy to you. “They sold a house with nowhere to go?” My answer is, “Hell, yeah!” When most people think about real estate transactions, they do the exact opposite: They buy the new place before they sell the existing one. While that might be a gamble worth taking in a hot housing market, it can prove dangerous in a normal or souring market. You could wind up carrying two properties for months, sapping your liquidity. As my father the stock options trader used to say, “I’d rather be short one house than long two!”

Tom and Pam had imagined one day buying a place in

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