Not having a second / vacation home makes me feel poor & depressed. Anyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, i'm not jealous at all. We just rent a place for 2-3 months every summer in a different location. Two years ago, Southern France. Last year, alpine Germany. This year, WV. (Original plan was Spain, but meh).

We've been usually spending 3-4k/mo on the vacation rental; since we're not too picky. Which is less than the mortgage on our DC house, but without the maintenance, taxes, repairs, etc. Not sure I'd ever buy a vacation house unless I had billionaire money.

Are you and your spouse able to telework?

This is my ideal plan. If my work moves to full time WFH, we’re going to north coast of Spain for a month or so next summer.

[Anonymous]

Curious about the tax implications of this plan.

[Anonymous]

This is so strange. I've never wanted a second home. Though I wonder if this is because my parents and my in-laws both live in lovely, relatively rural places that are nice to visit in the summer (or in my case, in the winter for skiing). So we regularly have the experience of going somewhere beautiful for a long weekend or a week and doing lots of things in nature, with the bonus of having some built in childcare in our families and the ability to eat in or go out.

I will admit to wishing we had a vacation house near DC this summer, because we tried to do a week at a lake this summer but left it until too late and everything was booked (we though people weren't traveling in this way, then found out lots of people were, but by then it was too late). But that's such a specific situation and I can't imagine it will replicate. In general, a vacation home seems like a hassle (taxes, upkeep, furnishing and stocking it, renting it to other people when not in use, etc.). Plus we generally prefer to go different places for vacation each year. We do a rental in OBX with friends every other year in the summer and even that feels restricting sometimes. Even though we enjoy that trip, I often find myself thinking we should have used that leave and money on a trip somewhere else. I think when our kid is a little older we might opt out more often so we can take her to slightly more far flung places.

[Anonymous]

The hassle responses sound like coping from people who can't afford a second home, especially when wedded to "we prefer to rent" and/or "we prefer to fly to xy and z." Read: We own nothing and flush what money we have away on rootless and fleeting consumerism.

If second homes were such a hassle why does everyone successful have one. Few of my husband's college pals are multi-millionaires who have secretaries booking their 15 minute phone calls to friends and family weeks in advance (not an exaggeration) and they somehow manage the "hassle" of second and third homes and pier-a-terres.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hassle responses sound like coping from people who can't afford a second home, especially when wedded to "we prefer to rent" and/or "we prefer to fly to xy and z." Read: We own nothing and flush what money we have away on rootless and fleeting consumerism.

If second homes were such a hassle why does everyone successful have one. Few of my husband's college pals are multi-millionaires who have secretaries booking their 15 minute phone calls to friends and family weeks in advance (not an exaggeration) and they somehow manage the "hassle" of second and third homes and pier-a-terres.

I can think of few things douchier than having a secretary book a phone call with a friend or family member. That sort of person may have money, but they're otherwise a loser by any other measure

[Anonymous]

This is one of the funniest and saddest threads in a long time. It really illustrates how wealthy DCUMers are. (Oh we can’t afford to own, but we jet set here and there. Poor us, we can only afford to rent a place for 3 months.) DCUM may not be the Uber-rich, one percenters, but so many are the rich, 5 percenters that are even out of touch with the upper middle class.

It’s so easy to feel bad not having/doing xyz in the DMV, OP. Resist the temptation. It is hard, but know that you likely have plenty more than most in this country.

[Anonymous]

Seriously?! We bo ught WAY under our means (650K) and bought a 350K waterfront second home you probably own a 1.1 million dollar home. Worth more. That's the trade off at any income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, i'm not jealous at all. We just rent a place for 2-3 months every summer in a different location. Two years ago, Southern France. Last year, alpine Germany. This year, WV. (Original plan was Spain, but meh).

We've been usually spending 3-4k/mo on the vacation rental; since we're not too picky. Which is less than the mortgage on our DC house, but without the maintenance, taxes, repairs, etc. Not sure I'd ever buy a vacation house unless I had billionaire money.

What do you do for a living that you can leave the US for 2-3 months at a time every year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wanted a second home. Growing up, my parents had a lake house 1.5 hours away. We went every weekend as kids and now my siblings who live close go with their families all the time.

We ended up finding a modestly priced waterfront house about an hour from DC. We go almost every weekend May-September, with a couple of full weeks thrown in during the summer. We have young kids so have no desire to travel internationally, or really anywhere that takes more than 2-3 hours to get to.

Renting is ok, but it's great to have a getaway that's exactly my style, has all our clothes, toiletries, bikes, toys, etc. and the kinds of beds and pillows we like. We pay someone to mow the lawn and otherwise there's very little maintenance required. It's a restful weekend escape for us and a fun change of scene for the kids. We're making great memories there.

+1

memories here are running from place to place - those aren't memories.

The memory police weighing in here....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always wanted a second home. Growing up, my parents had a lake house 1.5 hours away. We went every weekend as kids and now my siblings who live close go with their families all the time.

We ended up finding a modestly priced waterfront house about an hour from DC. We go almost every weekend May-September, with a couple of full weeks thrown in during the summer. We have young kids so have no desire to travel internationally, or really anywhere that takes more than 2-3 hours to get to.

Renting is ok, but it's great to have a getaway that's exactly my style, has all our clothes, toiletries, bikes, toys, etc. and the kinds of beds and pillows we like. We pay someone to mow the lawn and otherwise there's very little maintenance required. It's a restful weekend escape for us and a fun change of scene for the kids. We're making great memories there.

Sounds nice PP. where is your second house?

[Anonymous]

This thread is so crushingly tone deaf for the times in which we live, the focus on systemic racism and inequality. Here’s to massive tax increases.

[Anonymous]

“ I've never wanted a second home”

Same. But because my family scrimped and saved to do varied vacations growing up. Never occurred to me to want to go to the same spot all the time. Having enough money and vacation time to BOTH have a 2nd house AND do other vacations is pretty1%. I don’t spend a lot of time being sad I cannot live like the tippy top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously?! We bo ught WAY under our means (650K) and bought a 350K waterfront second home you probably own a 1.1 million dollar home. Worth more. That's the trade off at any income.

Just curious - where?

[Anonymous]

My in laws had a fight about this before they divorced. My MIL wanted a beach house and my FIL thought it was stupid. I joke i am going to buy my MIL a beach house one day. lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hassle responses sound like coping from people who can't afford a second home, especially when wedded to "we prefer to rent" and/or "we prefer to fly to xy and z." Read: We own nothing and flush what money we have away on rootless and fleeting consumerism.

If second homes were such a hassle why does everyone successful have one. Few of my husband's college pals are multi-millionaires who have secretaries booking their 15 minute phone calls to friends and family weeks in advance (not an exaggeration) and they somehow manage the "hassle" of second and third homes and pier-a-terres.

This!