We have friends who moved to Tennessee over a year ago, and put their home here on the market. They purchased their dream home in Tennessee, and expected that they would be there for years to come. Sadly, they just put that dream home up on the market, and they’ll be downsizing, because the home they own in Tampa still hasn’t sold. I believe they did a refinance on their Tampa home to buy the Tennessee home, and they’re out of options now.

If one good thing has come out of the real estate mess in Florida, it’s that mortgage loans are tougher to get than ever. Lenders don’t want to make the same mistake twice…especially after they’ve seen all of the foreclosures in the past year. It pains me to see people defaulting on their loans and other bills and being forced into debt consolidation because a lender sold them on buying too much house. We got approved for MUCH more house than we ended up with, and after we ran the numbers, we knew it wasn’t possible to buy a more expensive home. Unless we wanted to give up food!

I hope that other homeowners don’t have to make the tough choice our friends did.