[brob28]

Joe - to me the first question I would ask you is: not considering baseball cards, do you want to own a home? If so, is the only way to buy one now or in the near future to sell some of your collection?

Bottom line, do you value your cards more than homeownership? If not, I'd say to sell some to buy a house. Rates today are in the 3.50% range for a 30 year fixed rate loan. The after tax cost of borrowing that money after tax considerations (given todays tax laws) is about 2.52%. I'd be willing to bet a lot of cabbage that sometime in the next 30 years the rate of inflation will be greater than 2.52%. So at some point your effective cost of borrowing on a home will be less than the inflation rate. What I'm getting at is the cost of funds to buy and the cost of the home are both at or near as low a level as one could hope for, so from that perspective the time is right to buy.

As I type this I realize there are counter-points to each point made in each post, but I come back to: Do you value your cards more than homeownership? If not, I'd say to sell some to buy a house