Can I actually afford to keep the house after the divorce?
The honest test isn't whether you can make the payment. It's whether you can make the payment, fund the buyout, and still have a life — on one income, in a house built for two.
Run four numbers before deciding. The refinance payment at today's rates, on your income alone — often higher than the payment you know. The buyout, and what it drains from savings or retirement. The running costs that never made it into the mortgage conversation: taxes, insurance, the furnace, the roof, the snow. And the quiet one — what staying costs you in flexibility, when a fresh-but-smaller place might leave room to breathe.
Plenty of people keep the house and are glad. Plenty keep it and spend five years house-poor and exhausted. The difference is rarely the love for the house; it's the math, done honestly, before the decree instead of after. I'll run that math with you straight — no agenda toward either answer.
I wrote this answer, and I stand behind it. I'm Chris Deutsch, a Minneapolis Realtor (MN #20382264). Twenty-five years of walking these neighborhoods, checking basements, and sitting across kitchen tables from people making exactly this call. I re-check every answer and date it — this one was last verified .
If your situation is more specific than the market, that's the one worth talking through. Email me at chris@lakesarearealty.com.