Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha, have fun with climate change.

Only a sucker would be investing in anything near the water these days.

Seriously—insurance is only going up, and that's your best case scenario. Most places you're probably consider are extremely vulnerable to catastrophic storm damage.

Get a mountain house.

Op - also a consideration, but we aren’t sure we are boat people.

Maybe something mid Delmarva peninsula—easy drive to the beach with much less risk. We stayed at some airbnbs—beautiful large old houses on open fields, only like 30 minutes from Rehoboth.

That's not really a beach house.

Yes, we've established that only a literal moron would consider buying a beach house in a day and age when they're shortly all going to be uninsurable and/or severely damaged on a regular basis. The idea is a nice family home that can be an escape and a retreat that also has easy/close access to the beach so, while it's all still there, the OP can enjoy what the beach has to offer.

Why all the aggression and name-calling, PP? We have a beach house, and yes, our insurance premiums are increasing. We've also experienced several hurricanes. But we can afford the insurance as I suspect OP can. We didn't buy ocean front (we're deliberately four houses from the ocean) and we looked carefully at the flood zones, so we've never experience even a dollar's worth of damage due to storms or floods. This "literal moron" has seen her beach house value rise by $500K in the 3 1/2 years since we bought with a 3% mortgage. My personal opinion is that, if you have to get in your car and drive 30 minutes to a beach, you might as well drive 2 hours to the beach from DC. It's the same amount of effort to pack everything up and get in traffic. We walk down the lane to a beautiful uncrowded beach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha, have fun with climate change.

Only a sucker would be investing in anything near the water these days.

Seriously—insurance is only going up, and that's your best case scenario. Most places you're probably consider are extremely vulnerable to catastrophic storm damage.

Get a mountain house.

Op - also a consideration, but we aren’t sure we are boat people.

Maybe something mid Delmarva peninsula—easy drive to the beach with much less risk. We stayed at some airbnbs—beautiful large old houses on open fields, only like 30 minutes from Rehoboth.

That's not really a beach house.

Yes, we've established that only a literal moron would consider buying a beach house in a day and age when they're shortly all going to be uninsurable and/or severely damaged on a regular basis. The idea is a nice family home that can be an escape and a retreat that also has easy/close access to the beach so, while it's all still there, the OP can enjoy what the beach has to offer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha, have fun with climate change.

Only a sucker would be investing in anything near the water these days.

Seriously—insurance is only going up, and that's your best case scenario. Most places you're probably consider are extremely vulnerable to catastrophic storm damage.

Get a mountain house.

Op - also a consideration, but we aren’t sure we are boat people.

Maybe something mid Delmarva peninsula—easy drive to the beach with much less risk. We stayed at some airbnbs—beautiful large old houses on open fields, only like 30 minutes from Rehoboth.

That's not really a beach house.

If you rent it out you’re a loser.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha, have fun with climate change.

Only a sucker would be investing in anything near the water these days.

Seriously—insurance is only going up, and that's your best case scenario. Most places you're probably consider are extremely vulnerable to catastrophic storm damage.

Get a mountain house.

Op - also a consideration, but we aren’t sure we are boat people.

Maybe something mid Delmarva peninsula—easy drive to the beach with much less risk. We stayed at some airbnbs—beautiful large old houses on open fields, only like 30 minutes from Rehoboth.

Anonymous wrote:Ha, have fun with climate change.

Only a sucker would be investing in anything near the water these days.

Seriously—insurance is only going up, and that's your best case scenario. Most places you're probably consider are extremely vulnerable to catastrophic storm damage.

Get a mountain house.

Op - also a consideration, but we aren’t sure we are boat people.

We love our house and use it a ton both in and off season. It's two hours away, but often with traffic it can take longer than that.

I will say that maintaining it can be a PITA, especially if you have a pool or landscaping that requires a lot of attention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve always wanted a place at the beach, but it never made sense because of working in an office and busy kid sports schedules. Now I’m in my 50’s and have savings for retirement. I’m not going into the office as often and will probably retire in a couple years. I could afford to pull out $1 million for a place. We would not rent it out. We’d use it more once I stop working. Our kids and siblings could also use it some. We’d have a view.

Downsides are distance - 3 hour drive, cost - $1 million plus pretty high HOA fees (cheaper to rent but hard to find places last minute), crowds and traffic during the summer, potential maintenance hassles, potential climate change, and is it a pain to actually go to your vacation home often?

Do you love having your place?

OP, curious, is there a reason you would not rent it out?

We're owned a beach house about an 8 hour drive away (SC) for 10+ years. We love it and are looking forward to spending more time there when kids go to college. I actually preferred having a house a significant distance away because there was never the thought that we should be there every few weekends. When we go, we go for weeks at a time, such as during school breaks.

Yes, maintenance issues are a PITA and can be costly. That is why renting it when we are not here has been so helpful. When we decide to use it on a more permanent basis, we will redo the entire place. I'm not worried about annual upkeep so much now.

We have a relatively high NW and would like the flexibility. Not out of the question to rent but I think we’d rather be able to leave all our stuff there and not worry about renter issues. Our kids are in college now, I’m sorry we didn’t buy before Covid.

Ha, have fun with climate change.

Only a sucker would be investing in anything near the water these days.

Seriously—insurance is only going up, and that's your best case scenario. Most places you're probably consider are extremely vulnerable to catastrophic storm damage.

Get a mountain house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve always wanted a place at the beach, but it never made sense because of working in an office and busy kid sports schedules. Now I’m in my 50’s and have savings for retirement. I’m not going into the office as often and will probably retire in a couple years. I could afford to pull out $1 million for a place. We would not rent it out. We’d use it more once I stop working. Our kids and siblings could also use it some. We’d have a view.

Downsides are distance - 3 hour drive, cost - $1 million plus pretty high HOA fees (cheaper to rent but hard to find places last minute), crowds and traffic during the summer, potential maintenance hassles, potential climate change, and is it a pain to actually go to your vacation home often?

Do you love having your place?

OP, curious, is there a reason you would not rent it out?

We're owned a beach house about an 8 hour drive away (SC) for 10+ years. We love it and are looking forward to spending more time there when kids go to college. I actually preferred having a house a significant distance away because there was never the thought that we should be there every few weekends. When we go, we go for weeks at a time, such as during school breaks.

Yes, maintenance issues are a PITA and can be costly. That is why renting it when we are not here has been so helpful. When we decide to use it on a more permanent basis, we will redo the entire place. I'm not worried about annual upkeep so much now.

We also bought a house 6 1/2 hours away, and prefer our charming Carolinas location to Bethany, Rehoebeth or other closer options. When we're here, we are truly here. We also rent maybe 7 or 8 weeks a year, so as to have about $50k in income to offset our costs.

Buy the beach house, OP! We can't afford to keep both our beach house and our DC house in retirement, which is rapidly approaching. And probably no financial advisor would have supported our purchase if we had asked. But I've never regretted having it for a minute. We made a conscious decision to have less money in retirement but have a bigger life while we're younger and more active. And while our family could make lots of memories.

Our kids have had a more "normal" childhood during summers here. So much freedom. They're more independent, social, confident and happy than if we had kept them in DC day camps. They know their cousins better, because of course, everyone is happy to meet up at the beach. I wish we could keep it for the grandchildren that will eventually come along.

We use our beach house as a place to gather with my siblings, with my college friends, and have recently invited friends who were "DOGE'd" to use it. In the off-season, it gets so quiet and peaceful. There's a community of owners that socializes more when the renters and visiting family have gone.

I love it so much, and will be sad to give it up. I'm at the house right now, and have been spending money and time on maintenance. Oh, the damage that salt air can do! And, for sure, you have to be willing to be in some self-denial about climate change or you'll stress yourself out. But again, I regret nothing! I'd move here in a heartbeat in retirement, but my husband prefers to keep the DC house instead.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve always wanted a place at the beach, but it never made sense because of working in an office and busy kid sports schedules. Now I’m in my 50’s and have savings for retirement. I’m not going into the office as often and will probably retire in a couple years. I could afford to pull out $1 million for a place. We would not rent it out. We’d use it more once I stop working. Our kids and siblings could also use it some. We’d have a view.

Downsides are distance - 3 hour drive, cost - $1 million plus pretty high HOA fees (cheaper to rent but hard to find places last minute), crowds and traffic during the summer, potential maintenance hassles, potential climate change, and is it a pain to actually go to your vacation home often?

Do you love having your place?

OP, curious, is there a reason you would not rent it out?

We're owned a beach house about an 8 hour drive away (SC) for 10+ years. We love it and are looking forward to spending more time there when kids go to college. I actually preferred having a house a significant distance away because there was never the thought that we should be there every few weekends. When we go, we go for weeks at a time, such as during school breaks.

Yes, maintenance issues are a PITA and can be costly. That is why renting it when we are not here has been so helpful. When we decide to use it on a more permanent basis, we will redo the entire place. I'm not worried about annual upkeep so much now.

We do love having our place. We bought 13 years ago and moved once because we decided we liked another area better. We go all the time - probably 40-50 times a year. And, our kids use it as well now that they are older. We prefer that house to the more permanent one, which we will sell when we retire.

Things to think about besides distance is how well the HOA is run. The HOA fees on a beach place can be no joke and special assessments can be in the high five figures if the money and maintenance isn't managed well. And you definitely want a structural assessment. Another thing to consider is what type of water do you want to live on - ocean view, bay view or river view. The lifestyle is very different between the three.

I just decided to ... but my HOA fees are not a lot and I plan to rent 6 weeks out of the year. I put the numbers into ChatGPT as well as did my own analysis and in 20 year is will break even.

The house I'm looking at is only $500K and chatGPT did take into account $5K a year for upkeep.

Mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities, HOA fees, maintenance/repairs, property mgmt fees

Put your numbers into ChatGPT and see what the cost really is. Would it mean you didn't have money to travel? Would it leave you strapped?

its' a luxury so you need to look at it that way too.

I’ve always wanted a place at the beach, but it never made sense because of working in an office and busy kid sports schedules. Now I’m in my 50’s and have savings for retirement. I’m not going into the office as often and will probably retire in a couple years. I could afford to pull out $1 million for a place. We would not rent it out. We’d use it more once I stop working. Our kids and siblings could also use it some. We’d have a view.

Downsides are distance - 3 hour drive, cost - $1 million plus pretty high HOA fees (cheaper to rent but hard to find places last minute), crowds and traffic during the summer, potential maintenance hassles, potential climate change, and is it a pain to actually go to your vacation home often?

Do you love having your place?