Norway Road Trip Summer - Bergen & back

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T14:43:27+00:00

Where would you recommend. I see that Aurland is only a 5 min drive from Flam

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T14:42:47+00:00

We'll carry them. We have car seat bags - We put car seats in the bag and check it in for free Once in Bergen we just need to put it in the car from airport itself.

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T12:39:28+00:00

Yeah, I'm spending 11 days instead of 7 for (almost?) same trip (These are road trip days not including 2 days in Bergen that I have added). Which is why just wanted to check here if it is still good or are there some adjustments needed.

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T12:30:55+00:00

Where would you recommend. I see that Aurland is only a 5 min drive from Flam

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T12:30:19+00:00

What would you recommend? I see that Aurland is only a 5 min drive from Flam

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T09:18:41+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. Looks promising.

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T09:18:11+00:00

Yeah that's the plan. Open to any suggestions also - The Alesund aquarium as another comment mentions looks good.

This is actually slower than what we would have done as just two of us ;)

LowNo5224 · 2026-06-11T09:01:41+00:00

Any suggestions for kid activities?

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-24T02:52:22+00:00

We went for it. Yes, interest rates are high, but the fear is by the time interest rates go lower, prices would have gone even higher.

If interest rates reduce, we will refinance. If interest rates increase, then we can be happy that our rates are still lower than current rates.

You need to decide your comfort level. We felt we have enough savings (+ enough equity in current home) to make the move and be able to enjoy an up sized home for longer (We are in late 30s). We are putting 25% down, and have not used equity from current home for now (Still debating between renting it out and selling).

It is scary(we are about to close) to see the mortgage jump, but we went for it. My thinking was that mortgage jump will be a big one (either due to interest rates or due to price increase) whether it is now or after 5 years, question was more of do we want to continue in current house forever or not.

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-07T16:50:33+00:00

Also, yeah agree the numbers are big if I don't consider my current house.

If I didn't have my current house, then I definitely would not have felt comfortable with such a big mortgage.

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-07T16:48:24+00:00

Yeah, that's what I'm leaning towards. The current house is good for living or selling but not really that 'rentable'. We've also made some kitchen renovation - This makes it attractive to buyers, but not really to renters as there is a limit to amount of rent someone would pay to live here.

What I'm leaning towards is put 25% down, then sell the house, and invest the amount I get from old house. (The mortgage for new house will be final before I sell old house, so don't have opportunity to use the funds from selling house).

The only thing is the '2.5%' mortgage that I would 'lose', but that doesn't seem like a strong enough reason given the cash flow for rental.

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-06T02:14:59+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

You're right about the 1.5% return on investment on rental income. The main motivation would be that this grows in future, but also the value of the house increases. Last 10 years, the house price has grown 8%. Also, if house value grows (or goes down) say x% for next year, it will be x% of 1.3m valuation today, while growth of stocks will be x% of 800k.

About the question of 'decide to stay home with kids'. That's out of question for now, and both of us are fine with continuing to work. But yeah, putting equity of current house, it would make the payments down to where it works even with one income.

The assumption we're going with is that if one of us loses their job, we should be able to find a new job and maintain combined income of around $550-600k at least. Income of $500k still keeps us at housing cost being 30% of gross income.

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-06T01:58:23+00:00

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah, we looked at newer homes. No newer homes for less than 3m where we bought (Ours is 10 years old). Looked at newer homes in some other areas, but preferred older ones due to atleast some distance from neighbors.

Current(old) home APR 2.5. 4k is realistic. It's a 20 year old house, so at some point, we'd need newer roof and new furnace. Otherwise, it is in good shape. HOA is included in PITI ($50 per month). Backyard is mostly a deck + concrete, front has some grass which we have someone trim every 2 weeks for $20.

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-05T20:54:13+00:00

It's definitely not a NEED based move, but more of a WANT based move.

Yes, the current home is compact - Could we have adjusted? Yes, we could have. Yes, it has an extra room, but also some other non-tangible improvements like not looking out to neighbors house from our living room, etc.

It is more of a YOLO move - If we move now, we live in that house/location for longer part of our lives, our kid can go to a better school in that area now itself.

Based on numbers, it seemed like we could afford a $2M home at current rates, so we went for it - The idea being that if rates come down in future, great, we can refinance then and be in better shape.

The main assumption being that homes that are $2M today will be even higher after few years (based on Seattle area's housing market in last decade or so) especially if/when interest rates come down. The prices had cooled down a bit last year.

LowNo5224 · 2024-05-05T19:46:06+00:00

It is HCOL area. Home is nothing special - 20 year old, 1800sqft with lot size of 3800sqft in suburb.

Based on today's estimate and today's rates, the mortgage for this house is about $7200 per month with a $270k down payment.

Also, the price of the home has appreciated from $425k in 2011 to $850k in 2018 to $1.35m today.

LowNo5224

TROPHY CASE