Pretending to Move

This seems semi-familiar, so maybe I've written a similar post before. I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can organize my house and truly declutter is to pretend I'm moving. I can pack up everything into boxes and put them in the garage -- or in a storage unit -- and gradually put back in only those things I love and/or need. It isn't just for organization that I would consider this; I need to replace some of my flooring and in order to do that, I have to get things out of the way. If my house were worth more than I owe (which unfortunately it isn't, not nearly, because of the housing crash) I might consider an actual move. I could easily live in a smaller house. I like this one, but it's a lot of upkeep. My other alternative would be to rent out my house and live in an apartment or smaller house with little or no maintenance required on my part, other than basic cleaning and putting things away. The problem with that is I would no longer get my homestead exemption and I'm not sure what I could take in as rent would offset the resulting increase in property taxes.

Owning a house is nice -- God knows I worked hard not to lose mine -- but it also ties you down and forces you to pay for repairs, as opposed to renting either a house or an apartment where you can change residences more easily and everything is taken care of for you. I used to think that you could never go wrong with buying real estate, but my timing was way off as far as that goes. Next year will mark ten years since I bought my house, and it's depreciated by nearly fifty percent. I can't even look at the appraiser's website anymore because it's so depressing. However, I hear it's coming back up. Maybe in another ten years I'll be in a position to sell.

Back to my original point and plan, emptying my house seems like a great idea. But I have a tendency though to think something's a good idea one day and not such a great idea the next day, so I won't get started on that just yet.