About to buy second home on Eastern shore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eastern shore does not have the best second home appreciation. Have you spent significant time down there? I would recommend renting for a month or two and see how you really enjoy it. It’s not great for swimming and there aren’t a ton of things for teens to do. I would love a second home for like getting away, looking at a view, sitting in a hot tub and eating out at good seafood restaurants. Do you like entertaining? Also second the posts about getting cleaning people. Don’t make it a chore.

Do not agree with this poster. Waterfront property in Easton area is strong. Boating is great. Swimming is great. Get a john boat for the teens to take out on their own.

[Anonymous]

What would you do all day there?

[Anonymous]

Jellyfish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would you do all day there?

We recently bought and this is what we do: kayak, SUP, canoe. Take our boat out. Go into town for lunch. Play board games and cards, watch movies. Sit by the pool and read. Play basketball in the pool. Hang out with our friends some weekends.
Get the telescope out at night.

[Anonymous]

No offense, but if you have the money for a second home, why would you buy a place in Easton? It’s a place you drive through on your way to someplace else.

[Anonymous]

Easton has a nice downtown. If you're driving to someplace else on route 50, you'd never see it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so so personal.

Reasons I wouldn't do it:

I don't want to sit in traffic. Any traffic.
Kids have stuff going on during the weekends pretty much whole school year.
When I have vacation time, I don't want to go to the same place over and over.
Home maintenance is not something we (spouse and I) are particularly good at or enjoy. My spouse is not handy.

But some people love it.

The beauty of owning a place, is you don't have to go on Friday and come back Sunday. You can come and go as you please, which means going when there isn't traffic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only you can determine if it's a financial burden. I have had a beach house much farther away for 15 years and it definitely wasn't a mistake. In fact I am sitting in it right now. There were years when the kids spent the whole summer here and years where they spent 4 days here (internships, summer travel, etc.). Still worth it. Don't underestimate the costs of maintenance, although ours is maybe a little higher since we really have to outsource nearly everything since we aren't close by. I also consider that a plus because it means we don't spend our time here doing chores.

What exactly do you mean by outsourcing? Do you hire a property management company or just the individual services as you need them? What do you do about cleaning?

The house is let out as a vacation home at the moment. Looks like they make quite good money. I think we won't go that route for the first year - I want to see how much we would use it without any constraints, and then think about doing it. The advantage would be that the company takes care of everything - maintenance, cleaning etc. But the disadvantage would be not just popping over whenever you felt like it.

Climate change/rising sea levels is something I worry about. On the other hand, it is out of the 100 year flood plain and hasn't had any issues so far. So I am hoping that any problems are far enough down the road that it won't impact my lifetime. If this house goes down then so will much of the East coast....

Re outsourcing - we have a property manager who handles the cleaning, checking regularly on the house when we aren't here, and minor repairs and painting. They can also provide access to the house when needed. We have a separate landscaping company who handles lawn maintenance and sprinkler maintenance. If we are doing any kind of renovation project we typically give the contractor a key, although I am planning to go to a lockbox for any future projects because there are too many keys to my house out there.

How much do you pay the property manager for this?

DP here. Depends on that market in that particular region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but if you have the money for a second home, why would you buy a place in Easton? It’s a place you drive through on your way to someplace else.

+1

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but if you have the money for a second home, why would you buy a place in Easton? It’s a place you drive through on your way to someplace else.

+1

Thank you.

Easton is gorgeous and has some very expensive real estate. It’s got more to do than St Michaels.

What would you suggest that’s within 2hrs of DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easton has a nice downtown. If you're driving to someplace else on route 50, you'd never see it.

Agree, and I have no dog in this fight. Other posters must not have been there?

[Anonymous]

The Chesapeake is not the best waterfront.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Near Easton. Waterfront.

I think we can afford it. Two middle-schoolers, so I am not sure we will get there too much in the Spring and Fall when they have games, but hoping we can use if for much of the summer with vacations and working remotely. Plus, in a few years they will be gone and maybe we can spend more time there.

Are we making a terrible mistake?

Have you looked at the flood map?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey OP - report back! Are you happy?

(We're considering the same so would love to hear)

OP here. I had totally forgotten about this thread and began reading it not even realizing that I was the one who started it! And I promised to report back two years later...I guess now it is almost 4 year later. Time flies.

We did put in an offer and closed in November 2019. It was one of the best decisions we have ever made. We spent almost the entire pandemic there, which was ideal as it was away from everyone. It felt a lot less weird being there, where you are always pretty isolated, than in DC, where things felt very uncanny.

Now things have normalized we get out there less, but still quite a bit. Being only 90 minutes away (with no traffic) you can go after a kid's soccer match and it is still worthwhile. WFH also makes it much more practical to get there while avoiding traffic, so that has been great. We can go e.g. Thursday to Monday in the summer. We haven't rented it out because we use it so much.

Our one regret is that we haven't made many friends there yet, partly because we bought it during the pandemic. But quite a few dc friends have come out and enjoyed it with us.

Cycling, kayaking, swimming, going for walks or meals in St Michaels or Easton are all great. We installed a sauna, which I love. But the best part is just sitting on a chair in the yard with a drink watching the sunset. We live on a busy road in DC so it makes a very nice change. It can be quite expensive to maintain a second home, but definitely worth it for us.

Go to oxford and eat at the Robert Morris Inn. Great breakfast and dinner

[Anonymous]

Probably