Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget Imagine you want to buy a house, let's say 1 bedroom apartment, somewhere near the sea so you and your family can occasionally visit it. Imagine that you only have.. let's say $100k. What are the options you would consider? What are the countries? |
Renting in different places until I found somewhere that I wanted to go back to year after year.
If you find a location that you prefer over vacationing somewhere new (or at least, if you find a routine that you enjoy), then consider buying in that location. The boating equivalent of your question might be “I think I like water, although I’ve never been on a boat. Which boat should I buy for $100k?”
As far as countries, decide whether you want to be on a lake or the ocean. Lakes have major advantages: no salt damage, far wider geographic selection, often easier to use the water (gradual slope into water, less impact from wind, tides, currents), and less erosion/property maintenance. In North America, “ocean” often means Mexico, though $500k would buy a small beachfront condo in a lot of the US.
So, go on Airbnb or VRBO and rent some lakefront or oceanfront houses for a week or a month. After a few trips, see what you like - or if you enjoy new scenery each trip. Each location doesn’t matter as much as seeing a wide variety so you learn from each experience. Enjoy :-)
There's this app, that offers just homes in London but should offer something in GR islands soon enough... https://flyway.app/homes it's a shared ownership model, no affiliation.
If you're dunking $100k on a second house just for vacationing with your family, IMO, if 15 years later it ends up being $0 on paper, who cares, it's what you did with the time there that will really pay dividends.
Edit: Mexico, I'd personally look at Mexico.
I observe in myself this weird thing: Buying an RV feels like an investment, but renting one feels like throwing money away. But in actual fact, buying an RV is throwing away much more money than renting one. And I probably would not ever use the RV enough for it to be a winning proposition to buy one.
Now, a vacation home is different, because you can resell it when you're done with it. By the time you pay taxes and maintenance over the years, though... are you really very much ahead compared to renting? (I haven't done the numbers. I don't know. But I'd encourage you to look very carefully at whether buying is really what you want to do.)
The best thing for a tight budget would be to buy local (meaning in your country) so you can use it more often.
For example, my parents love Cape Cod - they've vacationed there for nearly 20 years every summer for 20 years, renting each time for a few weeks. Until recently, the economics never made sense to buy - only last year did rental prices exceed basically what they could afford. Generally, I'd say rent.
That said, I also have family who own multiple beach houses in CA. Even though they're worth millions, they still rent out their beach houses when they're not using them on high-end rental sites. They've used VRBO but generally use higher end services. The key here is that even rich people view a second home as a loss-leading asset and try to have it generate income in the off season, on the east coast this is basically a lost cause if the home is in a vacation town that's dead in the winter.
With only $100k I'd say keep your money and keep renting, you keep all the upside and pay a small premium. If you really want to own something you'll just need more money.
1) If you really want to, you can probably take out a loan and buy/build some kind of summer house with $100K savings. That's more than enough for a solid down payment and the needed extra expenses, or even buying something in cash if you're willing to sacrifice on the size/location of the property and quality of the house, depending on your desired living standards.
2) If your budget truly is already tight, perhaps going to buy a second house might not be the wisest move heading into a potentially very rough economy. Perhaps you can reduce those concerns by AirBnB'ing it, but take into account that in a down-economy excess travel is going to take a hit too.
3) Depending on many factors I can't possibly evaluate (age, health, relationship status, kids, life satisfaction and mental state, etc) an optimal middle ground might be to try and save more cash and evaluate where the economy is in the next couple of years. Being cash-rich when there's a downturn is a great spot to be in.
There are many articles on the subject though, ex: https://vacationhome.guide/second-home-mortgage-guide/
dang, you are overseeing this site turning into reddit. Check all the Ask HN from the last week and you'll see many that are completely off topic.
You can likely get some revenue back from it by Airbnbing it out when you aren’t around.
Timeshares are an option, a lot of them are scams but some people do have success with them if you do your research.
Ultimately don’t make yourself house poor. 100k also buys a lot of stays at beach hotels or trips to Mexico, DR etc.
The tax is 40€ (forty euros) a year. South facing king roof slope ideal for panels and south facing varanda over the backyard.
I usually take a day or two to get through personal emails just as a heads up.
Certainly a project, but if you are into that sort of thing, it is half the fun.
My main consideration would be drivable access from the bay area, but your constraints may differ. If I need a plane to go there, I am unlikely to visit frequently.
I was thinking more along the lines of off-grid and unpermitted which is doable for 50K
So one idea would be to put down $40k on a $400k property and hold at least $40k in cash as reserves just in case.
If you're open to Europe, some affordable cities with beaches include Valencia or Malaga in Spain, and Antalya in Turkey.
Kota Kinabalu is about $50k-$160k on a random search, and it's got one of the most international airports in the world. Something half an hour away should be both prettier and cheaper. Good seafood. Mt Kinabalu is a balance of epic and peaceful. It's a decent place to retire.
You can purchase something in a village between Rosarito / Ensenada for $100k too.
(Due to balance of cost, projected appreciation in that area, and ability to rent the property ).
If just looking for something… fun.
St Croix could be an option.
Or Puerto Rico.
Lima, Peru has some okay condos in Miraflores and Barranco that might fit your budget / needs.
The main threat to the NC barrier islands is humans' insistence on things not changing. The natural state of barrier islands is to erode, move, grow, shrink, sink into the sea, reappear. The historical and geological records are quite clear on this. The efforts we put into trying to make them stay put do far more damage than climate change ever will.
I was just wondering if there were areas on the NC coast that don’t meet that description