Do you think a vacation home is a good investment?

[Anonymous]

We have been talking about getting a vacation home for years. DH got a large bonus this year and we are now sitting on a sizable amount of cash. Our family likes to travel but we don’t necessarily like to go to the same place so it is hard to pick one place for a vacation home. We like the beach but may want to go to Maine one year and the outer banks the next. Same with skiing. We go somewhere different every year. I also don’t want to go to the same beach for 2 weeks. If we go on a long vacation, it would not be to a beach house.

From an investment standpoint, would be just be better off investing in mutual funds vs a vacation home?

[Anonymous]

If we bought a vacation home, we would rent it out and get a property manager. It seems like a lot of trouble. DH seems to want this vacation home though.

[Anonymous]

We have a Condo in Rehoboth. We like it because we go for a week in the summer but a lot of weekends in the off season. We still do a family vacation somewhere else most years.
We rent it out and just block out when we want to go. It pays for itself so for us it’s a worthwhile investment.

[Anonymous]

We have a house in Delaware that we use now and plan for it to be our primary retirement residence. I think it’s a good investment. We have an amazing life and amazing memories and it will be paid off well before retirement. We don’t rent it out and we use our vacation time to travel to other places while using this house for weekends.

[Anonymous]

It depends on location, and a host of other factors, OP. To me, it is not worth the investment of my mental energy.

[Anonymous]

A second home is not an investment unless you want to become a landlord/property manager.

[Anonymous]

OP, it doesn’t really sound like it makes sense for you?

Most people who purchase vacation homes already have a place they like to go.

If it’s actually the investment you care about, there are far easier ways to make money.

[Anonymous]

For us, absolutely! We purchased an ocean front house in Corolla, NC in 2017. We got it for a steal and it has a mortgage at a nice low fixed rate. It needed a little bit of TLC with new paint and new furnishings and we redid the bathrooms and decks. The TLC cost about $115K. It was a stretch at the time, but I’m so glad that we took the leap and made it work.

We rent it for 5-7 weeks in the summer and net almost $13,000 per week and it pays for the mortgage, taxes, insurance and upkeep. And we spend the other weeks enjoying the house.

And the house’s value has shot up.

But if we had not had the cash to fix it up and gotten lucky with the interest rate, it would not have been a good move on our part.

[Anonymous]

A vacation house isn’t an investment. It’s a place to go enjoy. If you’re not going to do that somewhat regularly then there isn’t a point

[Anonymous]

No, it is not a good idea as purely an investment.

[Anonymous]

Real estate is a tricky mistress. Can go nowhere for years, can shoot up.

Ex ante, I don’t think if it as a good investment unless your family loves using it.

[Anonymous]

If you plan on buying and holding into retirement there are a lot of perks, a few small wins financially.

We have a generational home with a view of Martha’s Vineyard. That is absolutely incredible. I will be the third generation to manage the house. If you want to rent it, make sure before you buy anything that you found a management company you like. If you buy in a place that is smaller and is not catered totally to the tourist set that it can be very hard to find a property management company that will be truly excellent. I still spend a lot of time handling Airbnb people from 1000 Miles away and it is very stressful.

We still travel quite a bit and we’ve started to use the house as a place to work remotely because our travel days are taken out by trips to new locations that we want to show the kids.

This has led to a perk I did not foresee, but now that the kids are enrolled in local camps they’re making a lot of local friends, and really feel part of the community here in a way that we never did.

YMMV but those are recent things I’ve thought about regards to having our second home that are new to the dynamic here, might be relevant

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For us, absolutely! We purchased an ocean front house in Corolla, NC in 2017. We got it for a steal and it has a mortgage at a nice low fixed rate. It needed a little bit of TLC with new paint and new furnishings and we redid the bathrooms and decks. The TLC cost about $115K. It was a stretch at the time, but I’m so glad that we took the leap and made it work.

We rent it for 5-7 weeks in the summer and net almost $13,000 per week and it pays for the mortgage, taxes, insurance and upkeep. And we spend the other weeks enjoying the house.

And the house’s value has shot up.

But if we had not had the cash to fix it up and gotten lucky with the interest rate, it would not have been a good move on our part.

Why don’t you rent it the rest of the year? Are you using it! How much did you pay for it?

[Anonymous]

It depends on many factors, I think. It is not necessarily a good investment per se. It can be a good investment depending on a range of variables, especially if you want to spend time yourself in a particular area or community. It has worked out really well for us.

In your case, it sounds like you have no particular place in mind and limited desire to spend time in one place. Or maybe you don’t have the time to spend in one place. So it doesn’t seem like a great option for you right now.

[Anonymous]

Yes. We bought 3 and Airbnb then when we are not staying at them, brings in a modest income of 100k