Discover the Great Time for Purchasing a Vacation Home
If you’re fortunate enough to have reached the time in your life when you’re able to seriously contemplate purchasing a vacation home, there is much to be excited about. According to the National Association of Realtors, one in eight homeowners are contemplating buying a second house. While summer may be the time of year you begin to think longingly about sun, sand and sea, it might not be the best time to purchase a cottage. Here are a few things to consider when you’re purchasing a vacation home.
Peak of season is rarely a good idea
Avoiding peak seasons makes sense in demand and supply conditions. Peak season, whether you’ve got your eye on a Vail ski chalet or a Cape Cod sea shanty, is as soon as the space where you are searching is, since holiday homes can be sentimental investments, many who have inherited them out as additional sources of income so that they can hang on a property. They could be sharing it with elephants or have needed to buy them out. They may also be part-time holiday home investment owners that got in early on a new hotel but need to ensure 100 percent occupancy during peak period to make.
Aim for the last weeks of the high season to turn your offer or hold off until just after peak season finishes. If you’re searching for a summer holiday home, the time between Labor Day and Thanksgiving is the best window of opportunity. You will still take possession early enough in the year to have the ability to have a glimpse of what future summers can hold, and you will also have
an opportunity to do any repairs that are needed before winter sets in. Then you can spend the winter planning what you will need to do to make the place your own the next summer. If you’re taking a look at a winter holiday home, spring is the ideal time to make an offer. While diehards might still be renting or occupying their holiday homes, hoping for one or two days of spring skiing or boarding in, most will have put their properties.
Just be careful not to leave your supply for too late in the year when the area you are interested in is distant. Some owners board their properties up for the off season, which makes it more difficult to get viewings. In addition, don’t overlook the power of spring mud. Properties available through three seasons may be harder to get during spring thawing and flood.
Before purchasing a holiday home, you want to think long and hard about a multitude of considerations. First and foremost is whether you’ll have the ability to use it enough to make it worthwhile for you financially. Even if you purchase a vacation home and intend to rent it out to defray expenses, so your time there’ll be limited.
Even though you might love a cabin on a lake in autumn, not everybody else does. If you can not manage to spend the 4th of July in your cottage, this might not be the time to purchase. Secondly, have you considered all of the duplicate expenses involved? Unless, that is, you need to treat every weekend spent at your holiday home like a camping trip (which may well be the case).
You’re not likely to need to haul lawn mowers and leaf blowers into the cabin every summer weekend. That goes double for appliances, furniture and linens. You’ll also have another set of bills for property taxes, insurance, lawn maintenance, internet and cleaning expenses. Moreover, there can be HOA fees, also.
If you wish to see every continent and are running out of time to handle Asia and Africa, does a holiday property make sense? If you find you are attracted to experiential vacations such as hiking the Appalachian Trail, swimming with the dolphins or building someone else a house with Habitat for Humanity.