[Boomer]

When we visited TV to have a first look, I was aware of the real estate market changes elsewhere, but they had not hit TV at that point. I knew we would not buy on the first go-round anyway, and the bond was something completely new to me. For us this is a second home under consideration so we were not in any big hurry.

And my thoughts have gone from patio villa to historic side to a ranch and even to the idea of waiting for a fairly new bigger home to come up for sale after somebody else has done the upgrades and ironed out anything that might have needed ironing out. (No. I am not Sybil.) And we will return to rent again and see where that leads. Owning two is a serious decision for us, especially since we do not plan to use a second home as a rental. We need to spend more time in TV as renters so we know how and what and where it could best work. And we will.

But there is something that I am wondering about the bond. And that is whether those owners who have paid it off and then wanted or needed to sell expect to recoup the cost of the bond in the sales price? I would think that might be difficult to do.

But on the other hand, a paid off bond might make the house sell faster against other houses with the bond still hanging over them. And even though the recoup might not be there in dollars, it might be there in time, and time is money.

I know that this, of course, will vary from individual to individual seller as well as buyer.

We have owned a couple of homes with swimming pools. And what I found out in the sales of those is that while the entire cost of the pool might not have been literally recouped, the pools seemed to help sell the house against the competition. Of course, comparing a swimming pool to a paid off bond is a pretty lame comparison. Any buyer would be thrilled to get a paid off bond thrown in. And in Ohio a swimming pool can be more of a "Yeah, that's nice." So not a great comparison. But you get the idea. (And, of course, pools cut out some potential buyers who do not want them, at all, thrown in or not.)

But can a paid off bond be expected to pay for itself in a sale?

I guess the point is that even though I do not own a home there at this point, this is something that I look at as a potential buyer. Originally when I learned about the bond, I thought paying it off would be the way for an owner to definitely go. But as I look more closely at the ins and outs of all this and how the real estate market has seen such changes, I would think an owner would want to be really sure that they would not want or need to sell for a really long time. The wait and see approach would be my approach. But that's just me and I am not there yet.

Boomer

PS: I guess I digressed a little here from the start of the thread, but I do wonder about the expectation of a seller to hold onto ROI with bond payoff in today's market.