Can I Afford to Move? Five Numbers to Line Up Before You Decide

Can I afford to move? Most people answer it with the first number that finds them: the price on a listing, a payment from a calculator, a rate on a screen. Then they say yes or no from that one number.

That is the wrong place to start. Whether you can afford to move is not one number, it is five numbers lined up side by side before you look at a single listing. And most of them belong to the house you already own, not the one you are looking at.

Across Dallas-Fort Worth, in all eight counties Momentus Real Estate Group serves (Collin, Denton, Tarrant, Dallas, Ellis, Kaufman, Rockwall, and Grayson), the five numbers are the same. What changes is the figure inside each one. If you are looking harder at every line of your budget right now, the question gets heavier, and it deserves a slow, honest look.

National headlines cannot hand you any of these figures. More homes to choose from, or more room to negotiate, can make a purchase easier to approach. By themselves, they do not make a move affordable, and they say nothing about what your own house would sell for.

So here are the five, what each one is, and who can confirm it. None of this is a calculator. Line the numbers up as they stand today, not as you hope they will stand later.

What would your current home likely sell for?

The first number is the one most people skip, because it feels like the least urgent. It is also the starting line for the other four. Everything on the selling side is subtracted from it, so a guess here travels through all of them.

An instant app estimate is a formula's guess. What you want is a market read: which homes near yours have actually sold, what condition they were in, and what buyers in your price range are doing right now. A broker prepares that from real comparable sales. It is not an appraisal, and it is not a promise of what a buyer will pay. It is an honest starting point.

What do you still owe on it?

The second number is the least flexible. It is not the balance on last month's statement. It is the payoff figure, which is calculated to a specific date and can differ from a statement balance. Your current servicer provides it in writing, and no one else can.

Here is the one concrete thing to do this week: ask your servicer for a payoff statement for the month you might close, and put that figure on your page instead of the statement balance.

What will it cost to sell, and to move?

The third number is a set of lines, not one. Selling has costs. Getting a house ready to show can have costs. A move has costs of its own. They come from the contract you sign and the condition of your house, not from a rule of thumb, which is why a percentage you heard from a neighbor or a website cannot be relied on for your address.

Put a line on the page for each of the three, and mark the ones you are still estimating. A broker can help you estimate each line against your own situation. The contract you sign sets the final figure.

What will the next home cost to run each month?

The fourth number is the one everyone reaches for first, and it is rarely the whole number. The monthly cost of a home is the loan payment plus property taxes, homeowners insurance, HOA dues where they apply, and a line for maintenance. Each depends on the specific address. In Texas, property taxes are set locally: each county has its own appraisal district, and the cities, school districts, and other entities inside it set their own rates. Two homes a few miles apart can carry very different tax lines.

The loan payment, principal and interest, belongs to a licensed lender. Maureen Cappallo is a Texas real estate broker, not a mortgage lender or loan officer. A licensed lender confirms your specific numbers and timeline.

Then set the fourth number against one only your household can set: the monthly amount you would be comfortable carrying, month after month, with the rest of life still in the budget. What a lender is willing to approve and what you want to carry are two different numbers. The second one is yours, and it should be written down before any listing is.

How much cash does the move need up front?

The fifth number is the cash the whole move needs, and when it is due depends on the order of the two transactions. Buying has up-front costs of its own: earnest money, an option fee, an inspection, and a down payment, among others, depending on the contract and the loan. Moving has costs. And if the purchase and the sale do not land on the same day, there can be a stretch when two homes cost money at once. How to sequence the two is its own conversation, and it starts from these numbers.

A licensed lender confirms which costs apply to your loan and when they are due.

Do the five numbers change across the eight counties?

They do, in different ways. Collin, Denton, Tarrant, Dallas, Ellis, Kaufman, Rockwall, and Grayson counties each have their own appraisal district, so the fourth number can move with the county even when the price of a home does not. How long a sale takes can vary by area and price range, and that shapes how long two homes might overlap in the fifth. The first number is about your street, not your county, which is why it is a read of nearby sales and not a county average.

DFW is eight local markets, not one headline. Your five numbers belong to one address and one household.

So can you afford to move?

Two comparisons answer it. First, does what the sale could bring (the first number, less the second and third) cover the cash the move needs up front (the fifth)? Second, does the monthly cost of the next home (the fourth) fit under the amount your household decided it can carry? If both hold, the move is workable on paper. If one is stretched, that is information, not a verdict.

The judgment: a move that only works if everything goes right is not an affordable move yet. Build the page with the numbers as they stand today, leave room for the ones that can shift, such as a repair, a longer sale, or an insurance quote, and decide from there. A plan that depends on conditions changing in your favor is not a plan.

Buying, waiting, preparing, selling first, and staying put are all honest answers. A household that runs the five and decides to stay has made a real decision, not a failed one.

Here are the questions to bring to your own page:

• Which of the five do I know today, and which am I guessing?
• Which one would change most if the sale took longer than I planned?
• If one line came in higher than I expected, would the monthly amount still feel steady?
• If the page does not work today, what would need to be true for it to work, and by when?

Start with the first number

The first number is the easiest place to start. Ask for a market read at momentusdfw.com/home-worth. You bring your property address and the timeframe you are weighing, and a broker prepares the read from real comparable sales around your home. It carries no obligation.

My team and I will walk through the other four numbers with you, starting with one honest conversation, 45 to 60 minutes, no charge, by phone, video call, or in person, whichever works for you. We bring in the right lender for your situation, who tells you where you stand and puts it in writing, and we keep every moving part stitched together, so you get one clear picture from start to finish, never handed off and forgotten.

Love your home. Love your journey.

Maureen Cappallo
Founder / Broker
Momentus Real Estate Group
TREC #9014872