The Albatross
Why I'm having second thoughts about keeping our Tennessee house.
Earlier this week, Will and I received an email that no landlord living abroad wants to get.
Our property manager notified us that we had a pretty significant leak in our garage, and water was seeping into our master bedroom closet.
The house has been rented for over a year now, and up until this unfortunate event, we’ve had few problems. The issues that did crop up were minor: an HVAC unit that needed service during extreme temperatures, some lighting in the kitchen going bad. Nothing major, and definitely nothing we worried about. It’s a newer home, built in 2019 as a model for the neighborhood, which was part of its initial appeal. Less maintenance = fewer headaches. We’d had enough of those with our previous three homes. (I have stories for days.)
Will and I had plenty of reasons to retain ownership of this house.
It had been a great investment, despite the real stretch required to buy it. As our income increased over time, so did our ability to keep the house.
We weren’t sure we’d like Spain, how long we’d be here, or whether or not it would become a long-term place to live. Keeping the house in Tennessee was a safety net if we needed it.
Placing a tenant in the property meant the house would pay for itself and create some cash flow to help pay our bills in Valencia.
It continued to build equity, meaning we could buy a different property later when we decided to sell.
We’d always been interested in real estate investing, and it was a good way to test whether or not it was something we actually wanted to do in the future.
I fell in love with this house when we bought it. It was large enough for our family of four to have some “spread out” space, a “just big enough” yard, and the neighborhood amenities are abundant — including a zero-entry pool, a gym, a dog park, and a playground. The school zone kept us in our preferred elementary school. And there were plenty of sidewalks for family walks.
So we kept it.
Over the past year, the longer we live in Spain, the less enamored I become with that house. It feels like a weight around my neck, and I’m always waiting for something to break while I’m across an ocean. Factor in my lack of desire to return to Tennessee — even if we moved back to the U.S. — and it’s starting to become even less appealing. Every time there’s an unexpected expense, I cringe, waiting for the big one to crop up.
Until this week, we’d avoided the big one.
I’m always waiting for the next shoe to drop. Will it be the roof after a nasty spring storm? Or the exterior paint? Or the HVAC unit that, until now, has only needed minor repairs?
Now we’re having the conversation again, in part because of the leak but also because, in order to buy a property in Spain, we will need to sell our property in the U.S. Every communication we have with our property manager (who is fantastic, by the way) has to be done via email because of the time zone difference. Otherwise, we have to schedule calls to discuss any issues.
There’s a definitive mental load to keeping a home in the U.S. It’s in the background of every housing conversation we have. Several times, I’ve looked at Will and said, “I kind of just wish we’d sold it before we left.” The money could’ve sat in a savings account until we were ready to buy here in Valencia.
Instead, now we’ll have to figure out the logistics of selling with a tenant in the property — or wait until their lease runs out. We are also going to owe capital gains taxes to Spain because we opted to retain it as a rental. We knew this and still decided it made sense to keep it. In hindsight, I still think it was a smart decision, but the complications of selling it from abroad feel like another bureaucratic mess to untangle.
At the end of the day, like everything else about living as immigrants in a new country, we’re still straddling both worlds. The longer we’re here, the fewer those ties become — but they’re still there, and probably always will be.
The leak will get fixed. The bills will get paid. And life here will keep moving forward, slowly loosening our grip on what we left behind.
If you like these glimpses into our life in Spain, you’ll find even more behind the paywall — stories I save just for subscribers.
This was very helpful. While I know I want to sell my house if/before we go (still an if, but very optimistic), I can't help but worry that we are losing our safety net. But, I also know I don't want to live in Florida anymore. Hearing your points after having lived overseas for a year+ solidifies selling it.
We are visiting Valencia, Alicante, Denia, and Alcoi late September and early October to get a feel of where we want to start out. Do you have any suggestions on where to check out good, walkable areas?
We kept our home in Virginia for so many of the same reasons. But after living in Portugal for over a year, our desire to return has lessened tremendously and now that home is just a heavy burden. All this to say, I relate to this post so much!