When I decided to try living mobiley – I did it initially as a trial phase. I went ahead and put my house on the market anyway, but with the real estate crash in our area – it didn’t sell. I was able to afford traveling and keeping up with my mortgage payments. As it was on the market, and I knew I’d be back in about 6 months.. renting it didn’t see like a viable option.

When I came back from the trial phase, I was determined to shed myself of anything unneeded. So I put focus on selling the house – because even if I were to want to be stationary in the future, I’d want to be somewhere different.

Due to the dismal housing market, I ended up cashing in some savings to sell the house at a loss. While painful, it was so worth it. I looked at it this way – the rental market in our area wouldn’t have gotten me a tenant to fully pay my expense of keeping the house, plus add extra stress of having to have the property managed, dealing with tenants, etc. I knew the market wouldn’t return anytime soon either (and indeed, it’s gotten worse since). So I looked at what it would cost to keep the house say.. 2 or 3 more years. And that was my threshold for what I will willing to pay to get rid of my house, so I could be free of it.

I don’t regret the decision one bit. But I was also fortunate enough to have ample savings to bite that bullet. So my solution may not be in the cards for anyone also trying to figure out how to fund traveling.

It doesn’t hurt that the yurt is on 6 beautiful acres in rural New Hampshire in a town we love a lot. So yeah, I do feel like we made the right decision in keeping it, but this whole rental problem is really a thorn in our side. We do have friends that are our “foot soldiers” and have looked into tenant law. We actually have all the papers drawn up for eviction we are just giving him a little bit more time to hopefully come up with the money so we don’t get stuck with it. He doesn’t seem like he is screwing us intentionally, it’s just the bad economy and bad timing on our part!

@Barbara – Yurts are awesome! They are round one-room dwellings. I lived in a yurt in Hawaii for a while: http://theprofessionalhobo.com/2007/11/where-we-live/
…and I loved it! There’s something very unique and satisfying about circular living.

We chose to rent, which I think was the best thing because it does give us peace of mind that if the S%$# hits the fan we’ll have a place to go back to. Plus, our house is really unique (a yurt) so finding something that we love so much like that again would be impossible.

We were very careful about the whole thing, not advertising it publicly, getting personal recommendations etc. We felt very good about out final choice for rentee and left our house (and our cats!) with him full of optimism. Well, now, 6 months later he has paid only 2.5 months rent and the issue is ongoing. So this has turned into a real mess and in some ways I wish we had done some things differently, but at the same time I am happy we still have the house to back to when/if we decide to return.

@Marta – I think it all boils down to personal comfort. Some people don’t mind having a mortgage while traveling either, since the rent should technically cover the mortgage payments and you have are continuing to build equity. Then again, if that tenant leaves, you still have a mortgage to pay, and might have to cut your travels short. Thanks for your input!