Vacation home

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Raylan Givens
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Vacation home

Post by Raylan Givens » Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:34 am

So I bought some property/land with the intention to build a vacation home. The property is cheap, but I do pay an HOA, even for only owning land.

I had great memories about the area as a kid. I would like my kids to have those kind of memories too. I also want a place to push away the daily grind.

I could make the building work. It would mean I am commiting the bulk of our vacations to this location due to time and money. It would also mean we have to back off on paying off our primary house early (another goal). My kids are young and I don't want them to say when/if I start building in ten years, "thanks Dad for building now that I am heading to college/job."

I do know that I would like to make it part of my retirement (part time living), but that is a long ways off.

Question for those of you who have a vacation home. Is it worth it?
Is while they are young better?
When they are teenagers, will they just be too busy for it?
Will they still want to use it when they get older?
If I build it later, will they think it is a cool idea?
Is it a bad investment/liability?

Thanks for your wisdom.
"Ah, you know, I think you use the Bible to do whatever the hell you like" - Raylan Givens

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Mad Jax
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Re: Vacation home

Post by Mad Jax » Sun Mar 18, 2018 6:00 am

Congratulations, good luck, and jealous of you. ;)

What's the land like? My brother has 40 acres in northern Minnesota where I bow hunt on the years where I can get the time. In exchange I do my share of clearing areas he wants opened up. Something to consider when you ask if the time investment is worth it; it doesn't have to be "all you" if you can find an equitable arrangement like that.

Also, my brother has taken his oldest boy (now 16) up there to teach him a lot about what it's like to deal with wooded areas and how to use a chainsaw, how to correctly cut down a tree, etc. His whole family goes up there a lot and they appear love it, and they also know how to handle themselves in the woods pretty well thanks to the experience. Not sure how much help that is with your kids. But hopefully some of that is useful.
Free will is a golden thread flowing through the matrix of fixed events.

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alas
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Re: Vacation home

Post by alas » Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:15 am

As far as the kids, do it now. Make memories. There is no "later" you can count on. Paying off the mortgage is important, but not as important as memories with the kids when they are young. The kids are with you for such a short time. We have looked at our own experience and that of our siblings now that we are all retirement age, or I should say, those who are still alive, and it is surprising how quickly the time with your children goes by. And it is heartbreaking at how fragile life really is. So, my main thought is make the memories now. That does not have to be expensive vacations or an expensive vacation home, because some of my children's best memories were the little things, watermelon seed spitting contest; aunt G won, singing mutilated songs traveling across Texas; "Out in the desert we drive, air conditioned and bored"

And as far as your spouse, enjoy the time you have now. Don't struggle to pay off the mortgage only to have your spouse die and never get to do the trip to Alaska with your spouse you dreamed of. Life is too fragile to put those things off indefinitely. We had siblings in this situation, yes plural.

As far as long term financial investments, you can't really buy time with your adult children. Having a nice vacation home does not really give them more time to visit. But more importantly, your kids as adults may have different interests. So, don't make plans on "when we are grandparents, this vacation home will be a great place for weekend trips." It may or may not happen. So, base your financial decisions on now, and what you as a couple want for the future.

We bought a vacation home, with bedrooms, hoping the adult kids/grandkids could come up for weekends. But it just doesn't happen. They are too busy. One family with split custody/second marriage/step family issues and one with church. My husband asked me recently if it was a mistake. I told him, "not for us, just that we had hoped to buy time with our kids with the extra bedrooms. But it was really for us." See, we spend all summer in it.

We laugh/cry at our next door neighbor. (He was alcoholic when his kids were young) and now he is really trying to make it up to them. So, he buys a boat hoping for time with them. But his son cons him into making him half owner. Well, if he is half owner, maybe he will spend more time boating with dad. Nope. All that has really happened is his jerk of a son takes the boat out without telling his dad, takes it from his dad's yard, and does damage for his dad to fix. Long story short, you cannot buy time with adult children. Which is part of why make good memories when they are young.



TLDR, make memories with people while you have them, because they can be gone too soon and when kids grow up, they have their own lives.

Thoughtful
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Re: Vacation home

Post by Thoughtful » Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:21 pm

My aunt and uncle bought land and camped with their kids in a tepee for years and when they were teenagers built a cabin from a kit. They still use it. Spouseman has 2 uncles with cabins who use it and do did their kids/grandkids.

I own a second property but keep it rented, it might be useful to snowbird someday but right now it really just breaks even.

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Raylan Givens
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Re: Vacation home

Post by Raylan Givens » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:20 pm

Thanks for your thoughts....I forgot about this thread.

I like the idea of making the memories now, but it locks us into the cabin as our only vacation. This is due to time and money.

Pros I have thought so far:
A place to gather and shake off the cares of daily life
A place to bring friends and family, similar to first pro
Will go up in value slowly (little by little)
It can be used year round (roads are plowed)
Golf course and club house nearby for retirement/snowbird life
Has its own well and water access to a lake (zombie apocalypse scenario)
A lot more mini-vacations

Cons:
Expensive to build right now, construction is hot
Locks me in as this being our vacations, or mostly our vacations
Cannot do short term rentals per the HOA
Taxes will go up for sure
If something happens, this becomes a liability until it is paid off in 10 years or so
Kids as they grow and get busier in teenage life may not want to come up as much (games/stuff on the weekend)
I feel a little spoiled/1st world, like the DirecTV commercial with the Russian Oligarch with a mini giraffe, and gold chains "I is opulence..."

I think we are going to hold off for now. Maybe the housing market will slow down in a few years. Especially if the market corrects itself.

I am hoping one of day trades really pays off, then gluttony it is ;)
"Ah, you know, I think you use the Bible to do whatever the hell you like" - Raylan Givens

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Just This Guy
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Re: Vacation home

Post by Just This Guy » Tue Apr 03, 2018 5:42 am

If you can afford the home and still be able to do other vacations, then that is great, more power to you. However, if you have to do one or the other, I would say avoid the vacation home. Instead, I would take the opportunity to travel and experience as many different places as you can with your kids. As you say, you only have so much time with your kids, I would prefer to be taking them to see the country or world. Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Washington DC, etc. There are many incredible places in this country to experience. The great part is each different place to go to has something new for you to discover. You can't do that if all your extra money is tied up in a single cabin.

Additionally, if you do have the extra property, even if you could afford it, it may become your go to "easy" vacation that you feel obligated to use instead of going somewhere new.

If you do want a place that you can come back to, maybe consider a time share? You can have a regular place you go back to, but at a much lower cost and options to go else where when you want to.
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." -- Douglas Adams

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HighMaintenance
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Re: Vacation home

Post by HighMaintenance » Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:35 pm

We are in the process of a similar (though slightly different) purchase.

13 years ago we bought a 30 ft cabin cruiser which we now keep at a lake in Arizona. It's basically a camper on the water. We have had multiple small boats for wake boarding over the years, but have sold them for various reasons.

The most recent was a 1970s era drag boat that was basically a little bit of fiberglass surrounding an Oldsmobile 455 Rocket motor. It's been fun, but we've had nothing but problems with it. The last straw was Labor Day weekend when one of the o- rings and a hose on the jet blew out it almost sunk. We've had a gas tank rupture, rain get in the gas tank, replaced the carburetor in the parking lot at the lake, replaced both gas tanks, etc. So when it almost sank, I told DH that I was DONE!

So, we're buying a brand spanking new boat that has NEVER been someone else's problem. 2018 Yamaha SX210. We'll have it the rest of our lives, our adult children can go with us whenever they are available, and I seriously don't care if we lose half the value as soon as we drive off the lot.

So, build a cabin, enjoy it for yourselves, then make it a fun place when the grandkids come to visit. Life is short, have a place to make memories. My siblings and I talk constantly about the family camping trips to Flaming Gorge because those were the best times ever!
Somewhere on a toilet wall I read the words 'You form a line to formalize the former lies.' And I finally saw the truth - Slipknot

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