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[quote=Anonymous]I’m from the Jersey sure and I’ve invested in OBX because I couldn’t afford the Jersey shore.

I’ve learned that it’s basically like the stock market but more stressful.  If you’re really in it for the very long haul - I’m talking decades -you’re just not gonna lose money.  Otherwise it’s about timing.

We bought high in OBX in the very early 2000s and sold low maybe 7 or 8 years later after concluding that maintaining the house wasn’t worth the stress and effort and that we were throwing good money after bad because there was no indication that prices were going to rebound soon.

We ended up selling for 40 percent less than we paid and having to write a six figure check to pay off our remaining mortgage at settlement.  The only consolation was that because it was a rental property we could write off the loss on our taxes, so we recouped about half of it.

We saw later that the buyer actually sold the house again a couple years later, for even less than she paid us. So she, too, incurred a loss.

Looking at Zillow/Redfin now, the estimated value of the house is just in the last year or two passing the value of what we paid all that time ago.  In other words, the value of the house is barely higher now than it was when we bought it 20 years ago.

Talk about bad timing.

My siblings have had the opposite experience on the Jersey shore.  One bought a house for nothing 30 years ago and it is now worth several million.   The other bought seven or eight years ago and has seen a real jump in prices since Covid.

To be clear, prices haven’t just jumped at the beach during Covid.  They jumped in less populated places everywhere.  We bought a true second home (not a rental and not an investment) a couple hours west of DC in the summer of 2020 and according to Redfin/Zillow it’s gone up in value anywhere from 30 to 50 percent already.

So, yeah, I would not assume that the luck of buyers in the last several years is guaranteed or will last forever.

The one other thing I will say, I have learned personally from owning a beach house is that when it comes to estimating expenses owners are more like commuters than men with their penises: estimates are always ridiculously wrong on the low side.  Renters destroy your property, thinking nothing of blasting the a/c and opening the windows, for example.  HVAC systems have much lower life spans as result of this and the salt air and harsh winter elements, requiring more frequent expenses.  Upkeep in general is more costly and difficult.  I could go on but I’ve suppressed the memories ha ha.

Bottom line to me:  unless you’re planning to hold on to the property forever and don’t need to rent it out, buying a beach house is a risky investment. [/quote]

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