Should I keep the house for the children's sake?
Answered by Chris Deutsch, Founder & Editor
Licensed Minnesota Realtor #20382264 ·
The short answer
Sometimes — and you should know that the stability you're trying to buy doesn't always live where you think it does. Children absolutely benefit from continuity: same school, same friends, same bedroom ceiling to stare at. If the math holds, keeping the house through the school years is a real gift to them.
On stage The 60-second answer
Captions on · Transcript below
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The transcript posts with the video.
The longer answer
But here's what family therapists and what I've seen from these kitchen tables both say: children read stress better than we think. A house that strains one income creates its own instability — a parent who's stretched thin, anxious about every repair, working extra to feed a mortgage. That's not the stability you were buying.
Middle paths exist. Keep it until the school year ends, with the sale terms already agreed. Keep it three years and revisit. Some households even try nesting — children stay, parents rotate — for a season. The right answer is the one that keeps the parent steady, because that's the stability children actually run on. Happy to think it through with you, no pressure toward either door.
The next department over
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From the editor's desk
“As Founder and Editor, I review, correct, and stand behind every answer.”
Is your situation more specific than the market? That's the one worth talking through.