Should we buy a beach house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Back to the maintenance issue. So let's say on a Friday night we get there (after not having been there for a month) to find that the HVAC has not been working for the last month (let's say air conditioning). The place is really hot inside and now I'm starting to worry about mold growth since we haven't been there in a month and we don't know when it stopped working. Since we're new to the area we don't have a trusted HVAC tech yet (or maybe the realtor recommends one), how do we find a reputable one in a short time frame? And since it's the weekend, what if they can't come until the next week? If we had only planned to stay there for the weekend (Friday through Sunday), what would we do? For those of you who own a beach place, have you been in this situation? If so how did you handle it?

Ask a neighbor or subscribe to Angie's List. It isn't any different than 'home'. I don't like Angie's List usually myself but I would use it as a resource if I were new to the area and needed something in a new area fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Back to the maintenance issue. So let's say on a Friday night we get there (after not having been there for a month) to find that the HVAC has not been working for the last month (let's say air conditioning). The place is really hot inside and now I'm starting to worry about mold growth since we haven't been there in a month and we don't know when it stopped working. Since we're new to the area we don't have a trusted HVAC tech yet (or maybe the realtor recommends one), how do we find a reputable one in a short time frame? And since it's the weekend, what if they can't come until the next week? If we had only planned to stay there for the weekend (Friday through Sunday), what would we do? For those of you who own a beach place, have you been in this situation? If so how did you handle it?

You have to have a maintenance contract w a company. You cannot "one-off" hvac issues, especially in season. Having said that, obv once you have the contract you get an annual inspection and they come when you call if you have an issue. And you use a Nest thermostat so you won't go a month w/o knowing your a/c isn't working.

[Anonymous]

OP, you can spend the summers there with your little ones before they get busy with sports, etc. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Worst case, life gets busy and you aren't able to use it as much 5 years from now- chances are the house will appreciate a bit and you sell it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - second homes are a lot of money. Just keeping internet/cable/phone operable year round (which you will want, because it's a hassle to pause the service as you come and go) is going to be $200 a month for some basic plans. Then homeowners insurance, property taxes, utilities, etc are all ongoing expenses. Then the costs of periodic maintenance. And the dealing with periodic maintenance. My parents have a beach place that they use for 5 months a year and we pass through at other times. Every second time we go, we walk in and something is wrong: the a/c is broken, the toilet is leaking, the hot water heater is leaking. So you arrive at 7pm on a Friday and have to shift into panic mode about how you're going to get someone there to fix the a/c asap. It's very different than living in a home and waking up on a Tuesday to a broken a/c. You just stay home from work the next day and have someone fix it.

PP who has a beach house. Taxes in DE are dirt cheap. Interest is low. Insurance can be pricey because you have to have flood insurance. You don't get cable - you get a basic internet plan and a fire stick or smart tv and use your nexflix and Hulu. My community has an HOA so we don't have to deal with maintenance. That runs like $300 a month and includes garbage, the pool and the golf course as well as maintenance. If I had maintenance I might not like salt life so much. As far as repairs, in four years, we've had nothing. I turn the water and hot water heater off when I leave and I keep the heat high enough in the winter to prevent pipes from freezing. Including all of our non mortgage bills (HOA, insurance, taxes, internet, electric, water and sewer our monthly costs are about $600.

[Anonymous]

If we are going to talk about beach houses,can we please for Jesus's sake at least talk about a nice beach house instead of a $260k shit shack? I bought $1.6 million house on water in St. Michael's and I would never do it again bc children and their endless activities run by fanatical coaches and lunatic parents literally destroy any prospect of me getting out there ever more than once in a blue moon. The good news is that the mortgage plus upkeep is only $8k a month, so it's not a meaningful amount of money, but I still hate the thought of just throwing it away each month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we are going to talk about beach houses,can we please for Jesus's sake at least talk about a nice beach house instead of a $260k shit shack? I bought $1.6 million house on water in St. Michael's and I would never do it again bc children and their endless activities run by fanatical coaches and lunatic parents literally destroy any prospect of me getting out there ever more than once in a blue moon. The good news is that the mortgage plus upkeep is only $8k a month, so it's not a meaningful amount of money, but I still hate the thought of just throwing it away each month.

OMG. Are you for real? 8K a month would be a meaningful amount for most people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Upkeep - lawn, gutters, weatherizing it for storms. Additional insurance, floods. Those are additional considerations. Plus extra plates, cups, towels, linens. And furniture. Can you offer all that?

Plus do you want to do things on vacation? Does not seem relaxing to have to clean showers and do laundry and vacuum floors when on vacation. You really have to think about it like a second home. That you need to do all the things for your first home for it, but from afar.

+1 If you like housekeeping, ok. But it is a drag to clean up after everyone. Can you afford maid service and to outsource all chores? How will you maintain both houses? I love it, but it's also a pain in the ass. Be careful of buying in a master "planned community."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Back to the maintenance issue. So let's say on a Friday night we get there (after not having been there for a month) to find that the HVAC has not been working for the last month (let's say air conditioning). The place is really hot inside and now I'm starting to worry about mold growth since we haven't been there in a month and we don't know when it stopped working. Since we're new to the area we don't have a trusted HVAC tech yet (or maybe the realtor recommends one), how do we find a reputable one in a short time frame? And since it's the weekend, what if they can't come until the next week? If we had only planned to stay there for the weekend (Friday through Sunday), what would we do? For those of you who own a beach place, have you been in this situation? If so how did you handle it?

You have to have a maintenance contract w a company. You cannot "one-off" hvac issues, especially in season. Having said that, obv once you have the contract you get an annual inspection and they come when you call if you have an issue. And you use a Nest thermostat so you won't go a month w/o knowing your a/c isn't working.

This is the pp who posted about maintenance. Don't get me wrong -- I've personally had three second houses in my life, so far, and I really enjoyed them. However, it's like they say about boats -- the two best days are when you buy a boat/beach house, and when you sell it. We'll probably buy another second house when we're retired and can spend weeks at a time there, year-round, but it really doesn't make sense right now. We can rent a house for about what one month's mortgage and maintenance cost us, and even if we rent four to six weeks a year, we're still ahead financially.

The pp above has a HOA that takes care of everything, and that is a completely different experience from a stand-alone, single family house where you are responsible for yard maintenance, painting, everything.

A month is a long time to not at least go look at a house, unless, as I noted, you have a caretaker who will keep an eye on things for you. It can be someone like a neighbor. It's just a fact that more goes wrong with a house, with greater consequences, when it isn't being lived in every day. Those who've never had a problem are lucky. We had a house in the country, and we paid a neighbor to look in from time to time and fix things that popped up. He is the one who called us when we were visiting family at Christmas to tell us that a pipe had burst in our house. He turned off the water, but the first floor and basement had already flooded. Lesson learned -- we always turned off the water at the main after that. If someone had been living there, they would have seen the small leak before it became a big leak. I also had the experience of having a house full of guests for Thanksgiving, only to discover that the oven didn't work. The repairman came on Thanksgiving Day and charged double time. The only good news is that double time costs less when you're not in the immediate D.C. area.

If you're close to the ocean, be ready to take off work on a moment's notice to hurricane-proof the house, as a storm heads your way that might or might not make a direct hit. Just stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we are going to talk about beach houses,can we please for Jesus's sake at least talk about a nice beach house instead of a $260k shit shack? I bought $1.6 million house on water in St. Michael's and I would never do it again bc children and their endless activities run by fanatical coaches and lunatic parents literally destroy any prospect of me getting out there ever more than once in a blue moon. The good news is that the mortgage plus upkeep is only $8k a month, so it's not a meaningful amount of money, but I still hate the thought of just throwing it away each month.

OMG. Are you for real? 8K a month would be a meaningful amount for most people!

I am for real. And the real tragedy of the situation is how parents forfeit their lives to cater to their DC's never ending extracurricular activities. If all the parents got together and said "no more" to the 6 practices and personal training sessions on top of that and the year around practices and events and games and on and on and on, we would be much better off. It didn't used to be like this. I think a couple parents got weak and caved a few decades ago and before we knew it, all the parents were screwed and the kids gained control over the adults. We need to hit reset back to the parent-child power dynamic in the 1970's when the child had zero power and the adults ruled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It needs to be walking distance. Period.

Driving is impractical. Beach parking is a ginormous PITA.

So is traffic. And a five minute drive is NOT what it will be in summer. This reminds me of a guy who lives a block down from me and advertises that he is 3 blocks from the beach and can hear the ocean in the morning. ? I guess he forgot to mention he has a bionic ear!

[Anonymous]

OP, I've posted twice earlier. We have a home in RB that we rent. I hope you are not talking about Heron Bay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to believe right now, but in a couple of years your world is about to change and weekends aren't really yours anymore. They are your kids time. It's like that for a few years, and then it tapers off.

If your kids are going to play any sports whether they are travel or not, it's going to be very difficult to use the beach house in the fall.

And, I'm in the if you can't walk, don't bother. You really will hit a point where you will want your kids to be able to walk. You can't understand stand it now as you have toddlers, but it changes. And it changes very fast.

OP here. Can you elaborate on this please? Right now our weekends are completely our own. We have no local family, so no family obligations (we see family twice a year). We have no work obligations on weekends. Chores/errands mainly get done during the week so none of that on weekends either. We have the occasional birthday party but if I don't know the parents or my child isn't friends with the other child then we skip those and only go to parties for good friends. So birthday parties maybe once every few months. So basically our weekends are completely free. Part of the appeal of the beach house (especially in the off season) is deciding last minute that it's a good weekend to head to the beach and just going, knowing that all our stuff is there so we don't have to pack anything.

Op, the best time at our beach house was when kids were not yet school age. In a few years, they will have active social lives of their own and will NOT want to make as friends' birthdays - nor will you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1 to the rent, don't buy camp. Do you know any friends with older children (say, 2nd grade on up)? I would say that 85% of our weekends from September through June are taken up by sports--often times with both kids having games--or birthday parties or school events. And our kids aren't particularly sporty, either. They each do one sport a season (fall, winter, and spring).

I also agree with the walkability factor. Have you ever rented a house or stayed at a hotel ON THE BEACH? It is a totally different, super fun, extremely convenient vacation. I would try that and see how you like it. For $260K you can rent a very nice house for many summers directly on the beach.

Also, you're not factoring in upkeep and insurance. Painting is a once a decade deal, if that, and its cheap. But, you need to factor in things like replacing appliances, fixing toilets, replacing roofs, plumbing leaks, etc.etc. Also, you don't get tax benefits from a vacation house the way you do with the mortgage for your primary residence.

FWIW, we have friends with a beach house they try to use every weekend and every summer, and their sons, in particular, have suffered socially. Most boys bond over sports, and being away every weekend and not being able to play on a team has really hampered the boys' social life.

Painting is cheap? I just got a $10,000 quote to paint my beach house. No can do!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 to the rent, don't buy camp. Do you know any friends with older children (say, 2nd grade on up)? I would say that 85% of our weekends from September through June are taken up by sports--often times with both kids having games--or birthday parties or school events. And our kids aren't particularly sporty, either. They each do one sport a season (fall, winter, and spring).

I also agree with the walkability factor. Have you ever rented a house or stayed at a hotel ON THE BEACH? It is a totally different, super fun, extremely convenient vacation. I would try that and see how you like it. For $260K you can rent a very nice house for many summers directly on the beach.

Also, you're not factoring in upkeep and insurance. Painting is a once a decade deal, if that, and its cheap. But, you need to factor in things like replacing appliances, fixing toilets, replacing roofs, plumbing leaks, etc.etc. Also, you don't get tax benefits from a vacation house the way you do with the mortgage for your primary residence.

FWIW, we have friends with a beach house they try to use every weekend and every summer, and their sons, in particular, have suffered socially. Most boys bond over sports, and being away every weekend and not being able to play on a team has really hampered the boys' social life.

OP here. It's really hard for me to understand the sports thing. I did not play any sports in my whole childhood, and spent my weekends watching TV indoors while my parents did yardwork (not that this is a good thing, but I don't really understand the appeal of filling up weekends with sports). I do know a few friends with older kids, I will ask them about this. Honestly from what I've heard from one friend who has older kids, her weekends sound absolutely exhausting and sort of miserable with all the waking up early, driving and shlepping around to sports games.

Yes, we have stayed at hotels within walking distance of the beach (usually 2 or 3 blocks). I don't really see much of a difference though, we still have to lug a ton of beach gear to the beach by walking from the hotel to the beach which is annoying, when you're walking with a huge beach umbrella, beach cart full of chairs, toys, towels, etc. How is it less annoying to walk with all that stuff than loading up the car with beach gear, finding a parking spot, and walking a short distance to the beach? I see these two situations as comparable. Finding a parking spot can be tough if you go at prime time, but usually we're ready to be at the beach by 7:30 am, so parking isn't usually an issue.

I will make a list of all the upkeep and insurance issues, that is more of my concern. However, this is a newer built house (2008) so hopefully most systems should be in working order.

OP, 3 blocks away is not ON the beach. BTW, what does your husband think of this idea? Can he afford two mortgages? Will you stay home indefinitely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is Parking by the beach? If it's a pain, then it's not worth it if you have to drive.

This is my concern with beach houses not walkable. If you rent on the beach you may not appreciate how much of a pain parking can be

OP here. Well I understand that parking can be a concern, if you're going during prime time (like 11 am - 4 pm). But we actually don't like to go to the beach during those hours. We'd get to the beach by 7 am (probably not much traffic then or problems finding parking). Then we'd be driving back to the beach house around 11 am (could be some traffic then). It's kind of the same as avoiding driving in rush hour traffic (which I try to do here).

And then when we would be there during the off season there wouldn't be much traffic/parking issues.

For me, parking/drive is a non-issue.

OP, are you in the town of Lewes, or our brother Royte 1? Be very careful of the suburban developments. They are a dime a dozen down there. It could be hard to sell, and you might not make much via appreciation.