Summer Home

[redriversolar]

I live on the Canadian Prairies.

In the winter I love living in the city. The bus service, libraries, groceries, community groups, the benefits go on and on.

In the summer, I want to be away from the buildings. I want to be among the trees, able to walk for miles and explore nature and maybe even dip into a lake.

We have a agreed that a cottage just isn't a good use of our time or resources but now we are considering one of these seasonal RV communities as our summer oasis. We are attempting to rationalize the idea of a tiny house located in a RV park, hopefully one that would allow us to go in the winter as well.

Anyone else have a recreational/summer situation like this? Does it work? Do you find it expensive and wasteful to essentially maintain two homes or can you efficiently shuttle belongings between the two?

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

[kib]

I think you'd have to look long and hard at the park: does it really allow you to "be away from the buildings, be among the trees, able to walk for miles and explore nature and maybe even dip into a lake"? Or does it situate you in a parking lot of ugly little buildings where you still wind up having to drive to the trees and the lake, with the added privilege of a monthly rent/park fee? As the owner of full-sized vacation homes (long story, this is going to change), I'm yearning to be free to go wherever I want, with no maintenance responsibility and no cost to me when I'm not actually on my vacation.

ETA: if this is more of a snowbird situation than a vacation (i.e. you're staying for months at a time), then the park concept has more appeal.

[redriversolar]

I think you'd have to look long and hard at the park: does it really allow you to "be away from the buildings, be among the trees, able to walk for miles and explore nature and maybe even dip into a lake"? Or does it situate you in a parking lot of ugly little buildings where you still wind up having to drive to the trees and the lake, with the added privilege of a monthly rent/park fee?

Good point. Of the different places we investigated this fall, one of them is surrounded by public and park land and the lake is a 5 minute walk from the sites. It is primarily a kids summer camp but they created the RV park for revenue. They are apparently expanding and the new sites (based on the satellite photo) are only 10 minutes from the lake and the walking trails are right there. So depending on who moves from the old RV park into the new one we will get to review the options for what is available for rent. The only downside for this location is that it is a 3 hour drive from our home, so getting time off in the summer (or finding summer work in that area) will be a tricky part of this location.

[Williamsmith]

The tiny house make sense for me just because you don't pay taxes....but could you not purchase property and avoid the rental fees and possible congestion. Taxes on unimproved forest property are negligent.

[kally]

why don't you housesit or petsit out here on the Coast. Tons of people go to Mexico or Arizona for some months and you could probably find a nice place.

[Gardnr]

We do own/maintain 2 homes (our 2nd in the mountains). It makes sense for us. Both our homes are small compared to the norm around here. We've done all our own renovation work (our mountain place was in bad bad shape but had good bones-and we're 12y into it and not done yet). We do pay for snow removal as we are not necessarily there when we have snow and it can be too much for a snow shovel and a back ;-)

We have no mortgages. We pay cash for any work we do. Our commute is 2h 20m door to door (longer on snow/icy roads). Last year our total cost of ownership of 2 homes was $1342/month. This is EVERYTHING. Insurance, property tax, utilities, repairs, improvements. We pay for good internet at both because we each have jobs that require us to connect in emergency situations.

How did we arrive at this decision? We are not big vacationers. We would take 4d weekends a few times a year and go up there and rent a nice home for 3 nights. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and realized how restorative it was there. We did the math in 2003. 9 nights there was equal to nearly 4 housepayments on a low-cost cabin.

Our mountain valley has 3 RV sites that are nearly full with folks who are "weekenders". I know some folks and they swear by the ritual. They don't want a home with all it's potential headaches. They like their portables. They know exactly what their costs will be as all utilities including internet are part of the monthly fee.

I do encourage you to do some rental time in the area you are considering. Be sure it provides what you are looking for.

Only you can decide what is best for you.

[redriversolar]

Only you can decide what is best for you.

Thanks Gardnr for the response, it's reassuring to hear your story.

[redriversolar]

why don't you housesit or petsit out here on the Coast. Tons of people go to Mexico or Arizona for some months and you could probably find a nice place.

Sorry, my bad, forgot to mention that we have two boys here that are still in school so we need to stay in our region.

[redriversolar]

The tiny house make sense for me just because you don't pay taxes....but could you not purchase property and avoid the rental fees and possible congestion. Taxes on unimproved forest property are negligent.

Yes, we have found marginal land away from lakes and cities can be purchased for a reasonable amount but anything close to a lake or park-land is a fortune due to government restrictions on private ownership in those areas. The other factor for us is the desire to connect with a community, preferably one that is based on walking traffic.

[razz]

I second the suggestion of trial by renting an RV for a few weeks each summer until you are sure of what you really want, what is in the budget, what is available and what is sustainable.

[bae]

In my community, ~50% of the homes are seasonal homes. There is a very high turnover rate of those homes, the average property gets resold in ~6 years or so. The real estate folks make a killing off this, as does our land bank, which is funded by a ~1% tax on real estate transactions.

My observation is that the vacation-home owners use the homes a lot the first year or two, then they taper off their use, and eventually put the house into the vacation rental pool while they try to sell it, as it can take several years to move a piece of property here.

That said, people who move here intending to live full time rarely make it past the 2 year mark.

I have decided from this that owning a second home in a cool place is clearly tricky business, and needs to be thought out carefully. And perhaps prototyped by renting to avoid huge transaction costs if it doesn't work out :-)

[Teacher Terry]

I have known people that rent rv sites close to home & go every weekend etc & this would appear to be less of a risk because if you don't like it you just bring your RV home.

[redriversolar]

We have been looking at the classified ads and parking an RV at this site next summer looks to be a good way to test the waters.

[Williamsmith]

In my community, ~50% of the homes are seasonal homes. There is a very high turnover rate of those homes, the average property gets resold in ~6 years or so. The real estate folks make a killing off this, as does our land bank, which is funded by a ~1% tax on real estate transactions.

My observation is that the vacation-home owners use the homes a lot the first year or two, then they taper off their use, and eventually put the house into the vacation rental pool while they try to sell it, as it can take several years to move a piece of property here.

That said, people who move here intending to live full time rarely make it past the 2 year mark.

I have decided from this that owning a second home in a cool place is clearly tricky business, and needs to be thought out carefully. And perhaps prototyped by renting to avoid huge transaction costs if it doesn't work out :-)

This is excellent advise and an important observation. Don't be in a hurry to tie yourself to anything long term.