HI Lost,
This is a current battle for me. We built our house ten years ago and I am hanging on to it for dear life...partly from financial problems and the rest.
That doesn't help your question, but I will respond by writing about our neighbor, who has managed to keep hers. Problem is, it is not an open-ended deal and it is not a pleasant deal.
First, she can remain in the home as long as she has physical custody of one of the kids. However, ExH there has already tried to take them away and failed and returned one when he got in trouble, lol, kind of!
The next part is that she only has until the youngest is "emancipated" or 18 or whatever legal age is in each state.
It put her in a decent position at the time DDay came around, but as time goes on, there is a daily clock ticking. She said it's nerve-wracking, on top of the other things.
What I hear now also (and this helps me think about issues as they arise) is that the ExH is very, very bitter about that money and still fighting and threatening her, several years later. Daily conversations somehow manage to bring up that he pays all their bills and he uses any avenue with which to toss it at her.
She is rather unkind to him, to be fair I suppose, insulting to him to his face and to his family and in town, where it is very small where we live and full of both of their relatives. So he also hears things on the wind, I'm sure and is continually upset by them and then takes it out on her further.
I am not certain how difficult it was to prove he cheated or if she had to. She was abandoned as we were so it may also be related to that portion of the pie.
It gives me a lot to weigh and measure, though, thinking of what it could be like years from now.
And, it's another connection she has with the guy, where if she moved, could have broken. But there was no money for her to handle a mortgage with being a fellow long term SAHM.
She amazes me in some ways, though, with the B Boots because of her strength. She simply opened the front door and tossed all his belongs out onto the yard before the locksmith came.
But she was not TT'd or anything, it was much more immediate, BOOM! in her face there stood OW.
Hope anything helps and I'm sorry to write so long.