Vacation homes, the dream vs. the reality

I have been dreaming of an outpost somewhere distant where I can vacation, store some stuff (bicycles, maybe a motorcycle and related gear), and maybe someday use as a second home during retirement. I live in Michigan, but I am somewhat smitten with the southwestern portion of the country. I would love a place down in AZ or perhaps UT. That is the dream, but I doubt it is practical while I am still working. Maybe if it was shared with other family members it would get used more and reduce individual costs. Anyone try this? Could you make it work, or not?

I think the answer is I need to wait until I retire. But I am 38, and not fabulously wealthy, so that is a long way off and it kind of depresses me that I need to wait until I may be physically unable to do the things i want to do. Does wandering the desert eventually get boring so I am not rally missing out on much?

Have you driven there?

My in laws have a place in MT (it is just a really small house in a really small town - it was handed down to them), and they get out there once a year, but it is really hard to get there, (they live in Pittsburgh).

A cabin 1-2 hr drive from home sounds like the sweet spot to me - then you can actually use it on weekends.

That's generally the way I am thinking as well. It's more than a 24 hour drive from where I live to where I want to be. That's way, way too far for a casual impromptu trip. My family does have a lake house around three hours from where I live, and even that sometimes feels like work just to drive to for a weekend. Maybe I just need to move. I'm not crazy about that idea right now since I like my job and generally do like where I live. My problem is I want to go hike in the desert all the time and rarely get to go. I guess nothing short of a major move is going to change that for now. :(

Unless you are wealthy enough to fly there regularly, I'd say that proximity is key to a getaway spot. My family has a cabin in Cape Breton (Nova Scotia). Care to guess how often I've been? Zero times. It's a 2,000 mile trip, so while it looks like a gorgeous location....I don't have the time or money to go.

I'd lean towards Air BnB for getaways. That way, you have tons of options all over if you get bored with one spot. Think of it like a vacation property sampler platter. And more importantly, you don't have the financial responsibility or worry of owning someplace a few hours or days away.

Once you've been to the places you want to go, you can decide if you'd like to make it more permanent at some point in the future.

You'll never make the financials make sense unless you end up buying in the next Silicon Valley.

That being said, I'm a big fan of owning a vacation home IF you can afford it and use it.

My parents own theirs. They're there about 3 months a year. We use it too, and at 4 hours one way it's just barely acceptable--but driving that distance gets us a lot of other perks that would otherwise be impossible.

Living in mi and buying in az? Nope. Not worth it.

While not truly a "vacation home", our multi-year move from IL -> MS coast is similar in some respects. At an 11 to 12 hour drive each way it's certainly not fun, but I've racked up enough highway miles over my life that it doesn't generally bother me much. Doing an up/back trip over the weekend sucks though...I've done 3 so far this year.

Regardless, it's the location we'd decided we wanted to retire to - we just decided not to wait until retirement to move. Of course SWMBO found a better job down here(not higher paying, at least initially, but much more potential and it's really where she belongs), and I'm fortunate to telecommute. That might not work out so well in the middle of the desert, but if that's where you want to be I'd say start finding a way to get there sooner rather than later.

KyAllroad wrote: My family has a cabin in Cape Breton (Nova Scotia). Care to guess how often I've been? Zero times.

Grandparents and uncle/aunt/cousins live in Prince Edward Island. You are not kidding it is hard to get there.

Best way is to take a direct flight from anywhere in the US to Boston, and then rent a car and drive the 8 hours. You're going to travel all day anyway, might as well make sure you actually get there on day 1.

WilD wrote: Maybe if it was shared with other family members it would get used more and reduce individual costs. Anyone try this? Could you make it work, or not?

This will depend on your particular situation and your relationship with your family members, but every vacation home needs maintenance and repair; what can happen all too often is the other family members use the place, leave it in disarray, and then it's your job to pick up / clean up / fix up the place on your own.

My parents had a lake home when I was a kid. When they got older, we had some discussions about me and my brothers taking over the place, but we realized that we would probably get into the situation described above with our brother-in-laws...they'd use the place for fishing, and when they went home we'd be the guys cleaning dried worms and dead minnows out of the boat, after we got done mowing the yard and fixing the roof. Ultimately, we told our parents to sell the place.

stuart in mn wrote:

WilD wrote: Maybe if it was shared with other family members it would get used more and reduce individual costs. Anyone try this? Could you make it work, or not?

This will depend on your particular situation and your relationship with your family members, but every vacation home needs maintenance and repair; what can happen all too often is the other family members use the place, leave it in disarray, and then it's your job to pick up / clean up / fix up the place on your own. My parents had a lake home when I was a kid. When they got older, we had some discussions about me and my brothers taking over the place, but we realized that we would probably get into the situation described above with our brother-in-laws...they'd use the place for fishing, and when they went home we'd be the guys cleaning dried worms and dead minnows out of the boat, after we got done mowing the yard and fixing the roof. Ultimately, we told our parents to sell the place.

Let me tell you a tale of two vacation properties. I'll leave the locations out of it, but the two properties are only 22 miles away as the crow flies, but that is over water. To drive it, it is 100 miles.

Location A is a very touristy area. It is out in the country, 5-15 minutes form anything--a bar, grocery, boat launch, etc. Really, the only things to do there are related to the water or food; the food/shopping is all extremely touristy and very, very beautiful.

Location B is in an area that could be touristy had they not built the road right on the water 100 years ago. But because of that, there are pockets where the road is farther, but the land is still cheap. You're literally on the water for the same price as the one above (assuming about equal home/land), you're 2-5 minutes from a gas station, 10 minutes from the marina and grocery, 10 minutes to the boat launch, etc. Oh, and you can keep your boat moored out front. It isn't as pretty. It is blue collar. There is poverty. There are nice restaurants, but not as many.

Location A is owned by a family. Grandma has two shares, the 4 kids have one share. It worked when grandpa was alive; he made the decisions. Well, as it turned out, it was basically the kids buying grandma and grandpas vacation home. Oh, but wait! One of the kids isn't married and doesn't have kids herself--and she's a teacher. She stays there the whole summer too. The others can't use it as much--one was a single parent. The other two were running businesses and running around getting kids to and from activities. So now, it is basically used by 2 people. The others get jealous. Oh, and when they're there--they always get lip from the 2 that live there about how they need to vacuum better or their bed isn't made (seriously).

Everything--EVERYTHING--is decision by committee. Oh, one of the committee members now has MS, needs Air conditioning, and a stair lift--not the problem of the other committee members (I had to install a portable AC--harder than it sounds with the windows available). Probably got about 3 months left that said committee member will actually be able to use the place, since it is a split level and she really can't do stairs anymore.

Oh, hey, we need a new deck. Well, one can't afford it. Oh well, we just will keep that door locked. Time to refinance! 3 people: "Let's do a 10 year and pay the sucker off" 1 person: "I can't afford that" grandma: "30 year refinance!"

Ok, so they decide to sell. But, you know, we've got so many great memories there. Lets wait one more summer. OK. Well, now they've actually listed it. Its only worth WHAT? That's what we paid, in 1990???? Yeah, well, you bought a location that no one wants. No one wants to go to a farm field, and you haven't kept it up to be a place that the locals (of which there are few) would buy.

Location B: Grandma and Grandpa bought it with their own money. Let the kids have more or less free reign of it, and paid to have it maintained. When they went to sell it, they sold it for what it was worth with no arguments--they knew it wasn't going to be worth too much. They were happy they owned it for the time they did, and happy that they could provide a wonderful vacation for their whole family for 40+ years. Fast forward 6 years from that and none of the siblings (5 of them) have bickered about any of this. 3 of them have bought their own places, since they're moving into the grandparent stages, all on the same road/stretch of beach. Another has an offer in on one 3 doors down. The last has passed away, but his widow and kids are welcome at any of the other locations at literally any time.

After seeing how it works when family buys a property together, vs. buys property's that are together, I wouldn't buy a property I planned on using with anyone but my wife. I would buy one next door, but never the same one. YMMV.

If you want to live in the Southwest, do so. You will never experience all it has to offer with a few week long trips.

That's partially why I moved west. There are certainly a lot of things I miss about the east coast (friends, family, cheap housing), but the climate is not one of them. Out west you can go from Boreal Forest to desolate desert in less than 100 miles. The only thing we don't have is cities built around surface water (like say Austin, San Antonio, Salt Lake, or ABQ) and tropical climates, but Arizona gets feet of snow in the winter here in Flagstaff while still being sunny and 60 degrees in Phoenix.

I like the idea of utilizing a cheap piece of property someplace nice with a big garage while working 2-3 hours away in a bustling city. I could see working in Charlotte, Chattanooga, Asheville or Raliegh and having a place along a lake in Pisgah.

Thing is, back east the housing along a lake would probably be more expensive than in a city. It's the opposite in the west, where vacation homes are typically pretty cheap (because there are no job near them) and city housing is astronomical.

Yeah, that's one of the things I consider so cool about AZ. It's a relatively short drive between places with cactus and other places with big pine trees. (Heck, sometimes it's a relatively short hike up in elevation) I like to be outdoors and to go hiking and enjoy scenic vistas. MI is pretty good for that stuff, but I just can't get enough of the southwest. I spent a week in AZ at the end of March this year, and last. I sometimes feel like I spend the other 51 weeks a year daydreaming about going back. I think I am going to UT next year. I need to check out Moab and I am getting pretty excited about the Cedar Mesa area at the south end of the state. I feel like I need a bicycle and some kind of rugged off roady vehicle to really make the most of the area though.

A vacation property is something I've considered as an investment. I haven't done much research into this area, but it seems like the key to putting your capital to work is to rent the property out when you're not there. I have mixed feeling about that though. Has anyone done this?

there are a LOT of vacation homes down here at the southern half of NJ. Most of them are owned by people in NY and PA. For them it is an hour to two hours to get here. Seems to be the sweet spot.

Other than a time share, I would not go further away from home than that.

I have family from the UP, I could easily buy a house in Crystal Falls where my mom grew up, prices are dirt cheap.. but I would never ever get up there to use it

Any reason why you feel compelled to buy a home rather than simply visit more frequently? Buying a home will compel you to visit the same place every time, and you will need to buy a plane ticket regardless of whether you have a house on the other end or not. The SW is a pretty big place. Rather than taking weeklong trips, you could take quarterly weekend trips to wherever flights are cheapest on Google Destinations.

The idea behind buying the place would be longer stays, but also having some more large stuff there. Would love to have a bicycle or two, a motorcycle, a kayak. Probably other stuff. An alternative to a permanent dwelling would be an awesome adventure rig I can drive out there and take some of this bigger stuff along. That presents it's own set of problems, but I have thought about that as well.

I have access to a 4x4 Ford E250 cargo van. I have visions of building that into something rad, but it is a lot of work and it may be more cost (and time) effective to get something else.

WilD wrote: The idea behind buying the place would be longer stays, but also having some more large stuff there. Would love to have a bicycle or two, a motorcycle, a kayak. Probably other stuff. An alternative to a permanent dwelling would be an awesome adventure rig I can drive out there and take some of this bigger stuff along. That presents it's own set of problems, but I have thought about that as well.

it would probably be cheaper and more practical to rent a storage unit for a year to store them in and go visit when you can.

My parents had a summer home (camp) at the lake. For about 35 yrs. everything was great. Family gathering place, everyone pitched in when something needed doing.

Then my father died and my mother was in a nursing home. Every one wanted to use the camp but no one helped to maintain it. I was the only one. Got old. Sold it

We're looking somewhat seriously at buying a cabin/land on which to build a cabin in a scenic area about an hour away from where we currently live to use as a weekend getaway and rent out the rest of the time. We currently go to the area and rent a cabin ourselves every other month or so as is, so we figure if we do it right we'd effectively be reducing our cost of going there and could do so more often and possibly even make some money.

We have a vacation house about 2 hours away from us that we airbnb, homeaway, etc. and it pays for itself for a year in 3 months in the summer. Then we use it in the off season to ski , holidays, whatever.

It's not TOO far away that we can't get there to to take care of it but when multiple people are staying there during a week, we have a local lady that we pay to clean it and make sure its ready for the next people.

Here's our house and how we set it up with beds everywhere:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/14321217

Just an option if you are considering it. You can have a vacation house make money for you if it's in an area people like to go to and you don't mind doing some work renting it when you're not there.

Vacation homes are like super cars they are great when friends own them.

In reply to crankwalk:

Question for you as I've been looking at something like that as well. How do you handle stuff like cleaning and restocking of the supplies. I have a place where I would love to work from remotely for a month and then rent it from there through the variety of those type of services.

bmw88rider wrote: In reply to crankwalk: Question for you as I've been looking at something like that as well. How do you handle stuff like cleaning and restocking of the supplies. I have a place where I would love to work from remotely for a month and then rent it from there through the variety of those type of services.

We buy a ton of stuff at costco and keep it at the house. Our cleaning lady that we pay $75 to turn the house with resupply everything with our stuff and do the laundry OR we do it ourselves if we are up there.

It can be hard work but ultimately it's well worth it to us as an investment we can enjoy.