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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With seemingly everyone who has one gone from their main residence right now, anyone else feel this way? Be honest.

Because honestly, this week I can't stop feeling "poor" (not literally, relatively) because we don't have a place to escape to. Relying on whimsical invites to friends' and family vacation homes at this point in our life just feels so low and desperate. I don't care how much or how little financial sense it makes, we need a second home. I'm so over being trapped at home all year, fishing for invitations, or even renting for a week at a time. Perhaps this is the precise feeling that motivates so many to buy a second home?

IKWYM. There's only so many times one can be invited to Martha's Vineyard or the Hamptons before one feels like a sponge. Have you considered Gatlinburg?

The price appreciation in Gatlinburg during Covid was insane. Cabins that would usually sell for 600k before Covid were selling for 2.5m+. Quadrupled. The market is now turning there so hoping for a fire sale.

I had to look up Gatlinburg.. never heard about it in my entire life. Is it like one of these airbnbust locations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With seemingly everyone who has one gone from their main residence right now, anyone else feel this way? Be honest.

Because honestly, this week I can't stop feeling "poor" (not literally, relatively) because we don't have a place to escape to. Relying on whimsical invites to friends' and family vacation homes at this point in our life just feels so low and desperate. I don't care how much or how little financial sense it makes, we need a second home. I'm so over being trapped at home all year, fishing for invitations, or even renting for a week at a time. Perhaps this is the precise feeling that motivates so many to buy a second home?

You are the lucky one getting invited to people’s homes and enjoying property of others for free be thankful. Maintaining a second home unless you are super loaded and have staff is not a piece of cake you think it is. Also not many are capitalizing on their second homes and for most middle classes it’s a drain. This money would be better spent as an income property or other investment and used for vacations to go to places you don’t need to worry about, maintain or pay extra for when local governments screw you over or there is some natural disaster or whatever.


I think the only thing you can envy is flexibility some people have to be able to go away for a month or two, which means not relying on a job that rations vacation time or having ability to WAH. People who do not need to work for a living and have kids who aren’t tied to a bunch of activities, sports and having to stay local most of the summer is who you should look up to, as they have true freedom of time. Where they stay is not even relevant.

This. If you have kids in baseball, lacrosse, and plenty of other sports, forget spending an entire summer away. We have WAH flexibility and moved from the area to a resort/mountain time so that we're happy with where we're at when we're grounded for sports.

This sort of hyperbole is such a cope. For one, travel sports are not literally every weekend. And I personally know plenty of rich parents with kids in travel sports who also have vacation homes. This obsession over how many weeks or weekends you’ll actually use a vacation home is a prole tell. Comfortably UMC and rich don’t obsess over such a thing. They want a vacation home to use it when they want; random getaways, holidays, a week or two off work.

It's not a prole tell. Very few comfortably UMC and rich DMV owned 2nd local homes at DE beaches. Comp it to Philadelphia area where a much higher % of the same set migrates to Sea Isle/Avalon/Stone Harbour/Ocean City etc. Why? 4 hour round trip for weekend use versus the reality of 8 hour round trip.

Their primary homes are also cheaper. Having an expensive primary home (especially maintaining immaculate resort like landscaping and a pool) and a nice second home you don't have to rent for extra income and can hire people to maintain is not something UMC can afford. OP being jealous of people who can effortlessly maintain more than one home even if barely used is like water is wet.

I think OP is jealous of people who bought some time ago and got decent appreciation on their second homes which hasn't made them a total drain like they would be for someone today buying at current prices with current rates and with vacation renting boom pretty much over to try to break even on some expenses renting it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really wonder about our future when these are the existential problems people are experiencing.

5 years later and where do things stand in our now present?

Everyone who owns a second home has hundreds of thousands in appreciation and has been enjoying it for five years, while the miserable know it all proles remain miserable know it all proles in their $hit shacks.

I’m not going to be mean but there is some truth to above. Our place has gone up about 700k. We love it and have made so many priceless memories there. No way are we cashing out and plan to hold for a long time.

Sometimes it’s not about the money but about family and time though. Yes we vacation elsewhere for new experiences but the second home is where we spend many weekends and the place that our kid will fondly remember spending growing up. Some things you just can’t put a price on.

My in-laws thought there kids felt that way, too. But being dragged away from their friends and activities weekend after weekend throughout their childhood has left feelings of resentment about the place and their parents that still flourishes well into their 50s.

Good lord. I'm skeptical of this story. I grew up going to a summer house and we left the day after school ended in June and didn't return till the day before school started. I remember the mad rush to Staples to get school supplies after the long drive back from Cape Cod. Not once did I or my siblings ever resent being "dragged away" from our hometown friends for the summer. We had a whole summer life on the Cape.

Any adult in their 50s who has resentment feelings over having to go to a family summer house or weekend house has other problems - if they exist.

I don’t know, this story sounds legit to me, and I speak from experience as well. For a large chunk of my childhood we’d spend all summer every summer at a lake house in upstate NY, and while there were parts of that I loved, I always hated knowing I wouldn’t see my friends until after Labor Day. Getting back would always be hectic too, since my parents always wanted to be at the lake until the last possible moment.

+1

Second homes are great when kids are young, but once they’re into friends, sports, and other weekend activities, it can be a constant struggle to go for a weekend without them protesting.

[Anonymous]

Nah. We can afford it but I’d rather travel. You do you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really wonder about our future when these are the existential problems people are experiencing.

5 years later and where do things stand in our now present?

Everyone who owns a second home has hundreds of thousands in appreciation and has been enjoying it for five years, while the miserable know it all proles remain miserable know it all proles in their $hit shacks.

I’m not going to be mean but there is some truth to above. Our place has gone up about 700k. We love it and have made so many priceless memories there. No way are we cashing out and plan to hold for a long time.

Sometimes it’s not about the money but about family and time though. Yes we vacation elsewhere for new experiences but the second home is where we spend many weekends and the place that our kid will fondly remember spending growing up. Some things you just can’t put a price on.

My in-laws thought there kids felt that way, too. But being dragged away from their friends and activities weekend after weekend throughout their childhood has left feelings of resentment about the place and their parents that still flourishes well into their 50s.

I think a lot of times the parents who buy these weekend/summer homes are looking at it just through their sole perspective as opposed to how their families might feel about it. The parents think that they’re going to provide endless summer memories and that every weekend will be a fun family adventure, not realizing that most kids between the ages of 6-16 just want to be with friends and doing activities with them. There is a balance of course, but I think I’d be resentful too if my parents took me away from my friends every weekend to go to the second home that they chose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really wonder about our future when these are the existential problems people are experiencing.

5 years later and where do things stand in our now present?

Everyone who owns a second home has hundreds of thousands in appreciation and has been enjoying it for five years, while the miserable know it all proles remain miserable know it all proles in their $hit shacks.

I’m not going to be mean but there is some truth to above. Our place has gone up about 700k. We love it and have made so many priceless memories there. No way are we cashing out and plan to hold for a long time.

Sometimes it’s not about the money but about family and time though. Yes we vacation elsewhere for new experiences but the second home is where we spend many weekends and the place that our kid will fondly remember spending growing up. Some things you just can’t put a price on.

My in-laws thought there kids felt that way, too. But being dragged away from their friends and activities weekend after weekend throughout their childhood has left feelings of resentment about the place and their parents that still flourishes well into their 50s.

Good lord. I'm skeptical of this story. I grew up going to a summer house and we left the day after school ended in June and didn't return till the day before school started. I remember the mad rush to Staples to get school supplies after the long drive back from Cape Cod. Not once did I or my siblings ever resent being "dragged away" from our hometown friends for the summer. We had a whole summer life on the Cape.

Any adult in their 50s who has resentment feelings over having to go to a family summer house or weekend house has other problems - if they exist.

I don’t know, this story sounds legit to me, and I speak from experience as well. For a large chunk of my childhood we’d spend all summer every summer at a lake house in upstate NY, and while there were parts of that I loved, I always hated knowing I wouldn’t see my friends until after Labor Day. Getting back would always be hectic too, since my parents always wanted to be at the lake until the last possible moment.

Do you sit around in your 50s holding a grudge against your parents for spending weekends at a weekend or summer house when you were a kid, 40 years ago? There's more to the story than we're being told and it's less the weekend house and more other issues with the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pre pandemic you could find super charming cottages and gated golf community homes in Florida for just a few hundred grand. Those days are long done. Millennials and gen Xers who didn’t buy when prices and interest rates were low missed the boat.

Often, prices only seem low in retrospect. If you can't afford it today, it doesn't matter that 10 years from now (with a different salary) that old price seems like a bargain.