I didn’t leverage my house but bought more house than I should have and we have been working hard to pay off the mortgage and wait out the recession/depression. Looks like we are going to need to move now so despite having equity, we are going to have a non imaginary loss comparing what we have put into it and lost opportunity on that cash with what we will be able to get out of it.
Can you refinance? I hope to pay off my house earlier but I will do it slowly.
The bold part above is what differentiates you from the overwhelming majority of folks that I'm aware of that either just stopped paying and lived "free" in their homes until the bank foreclosed on the house (in some cases up to 3 years later) or just gave up and walked away. It's a credit to you that you did your best to live up to your obligations rather than do what so many others did. Best of luck to you going forward.