Vacation Home

[Bravosarah]

Our local ski hill is 2.5 hours away and we can't stay overnight because of our pets. (one of our cats needs medication twice daily) A 5 hour commute is pretty tiring, especially the drive home.

So, should we buy a vacation home and bring our pets with us? If we do, annual ski vacations to large resorts will become a thing of the past. Or, should we suck up the drive time and continue to travel?

 

[num]

If you can afford it, I'd vote vacation home near the hill. Though vacations to large resorts are great, you'd be able to get so many more ski days if you had a place at the hill. I figure you're likely to get at least twice as much skiing in as you do now, as you'd drive up a day, ski, spend the night, ski and come home instead of rushing there and back in the same day. Weekends could mean Friday, Saturday and Sunday would all give you snow time, and you'd always have a plan that doesn't cost you any additional money to spend vacation days at.

 

[NannyMin]

I think it depends on whether you have or plan to have children. That changes the whole enchildada!

 

[ski diva]

What's the hill? If it's itty bitty and and you'll get bored of it in short order, I'd say go for the vacations. If it's fairly decent size and provides access to other skiing, and if it's a great place to be in the off season, too, I'd say get the place. Would this be just for your use or would you rent it out? That's something to consider, too.

But watch out -- I started out with a vacation home and then moved in full time. So you never know.......

 

[ride_ski]

We were in a similar situation. 2 hours away from the mountain with 3 cats- one of which needs fluids and medication for kidney failure. We decided to get a house close to the mountain. It works for us. We are near Killington, but also within driving distance of Okemo and Sugarbush if we want variety. We also ride motorcycles, so we use the house in the summer as well. The roads in Vt are awesome on a bike.

A few cons: With a second home, there is double the maintenance. It seems like everytime we come up to Vt, there is snow to shovel/ move or the "lawn" to mow. This takes away from the available fun time as it is usually 1/2 day of chores.

We haven't had a vacation to a place other than Vt since our honeymoon 3 years ago. (But DH gave me a "real" vacation for our last anniversary so this will be changing soon. I had 4 destinations to choose from. 2 are skiing related- Whistler or Snowbird . We're leaning towards Snowbird).There are other factors, but since we already have another house, it's easy to vacation there.

I'm very glad we chose to do this. The Pros outweigh the Cons for sure.

Ski Diva- I won't show my husband your post as he's been scheming for a few years how to make the "vacation home" the permanent one.

 

[w.ski]

What's the hill? If it's itty bitty and and you'll get bored of it in short order, I'd say go for the vacations. If it's fairly decent size and provides access to other skiing, and if it's a great place to be in the off season, too, I'd say get the place.

What she said. Exactly! :D

 

[Jilly]

Why don't you try what we are doing, rent!! We have a seasonal rental that includes everything. We take over the 15th of November and leave the 15th of April. If it works, then you can think about buying something. Just make sure your rental allows pets. And if your thinking about North of TO, there are many options to ski beside Blue!!

 

[MaineSkiLady]

I'm going to agree with the seasonal rental concept. Buying is a huge commitment - and with today's real estate market, selling, when/if necessary, might be way harder than even a year ago. Unfortunately, I'm speaking from experience here. The expenses and obligations were never-ending, and selling took forever. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have rented for a season.

 

[Gloria]

A vacation home is an investment that could pay off in the long run, skiing resorts is money out that you will never recover. Although the market isn't as strong as it's been, it will rise. After all would you buy stock at an all time high you'd buy in the dips right? So why would you wait to invest in real estate that will rise in the future this is a great time to be a buyer, invest enjoy, if you get bored skiing the mountain over the next few years, sell it and enjoy the profit. The other benefit is you can ussually find pretty reasonable companies to rent the property out and clean it for you between your visits. You can both use the money to visit other resorts if you wish or do like my friends did, pay off their 1.5 millon dollar slopeside condo in Jackson. Hello, took them all of 3 years, now they own it, don't rent it out anymore and all they had to do was give up a handful of weeks each year. Make your money work for you if you are in a position to do so, and if you are in a postition to do so in a way like this that benefits your lifestyle as well, why not? Especially if you are in a location that is conducive to others paying your mortgage for you for a couple years. That way you could still ski elsewhere while someone else uses your home and is paying for your trip essentially.
Just stock it with TJ maxx, not family heirlooms.

 

[Bravosarah]

We were in a similar situation. 2 hours away from the mountain with 3 cats- one of which needs fluids and medication for kidney failure. We decided to get a house close to the mountain. It works for us. We are near Killington, but also within driving distance of Okemo and Sugarbush if we want variety. We also ride motorcycles, so we use the house in the summer as well. The roads in Vt are awesome on a bike.

A few cons: With a second home, there is double the maintenance. It seems like everytime we come up to Vt, there is snow to shovel/ move or the "lawn" to mow. This takes away from the available fun time as it is usually 1/2 day of chores.

We haven't had a vacation to a place other than Vt since our honeymoon 3 years ago. (But DH gave me a "real" vacation for our last anniversary so this will be changing soon. I had 4 destinations to choose from. 2 are skiing related- Whistler or Snowbird . We're leaning towards Snowbird).There are other factors, but since we already have another house, it's easy to vacation there.

I'm very glad we chose to do this. The Pros outweigh the Cons for sure.

Ski Diva- I won't show my husband your post as he's been scheming for a few years how to make the "vacation home" the permanent one.

This is exactly our situation! We have 3 cats (1 on medication) and 2 motorcyles too!

Jilly - Vacation rental seems like an option too. Thanks.

Ski Diva - There are lots of ski resorts in the area and a beach too!

NannyMin - No kids.

We're thinking that the vacation home would become our retirement home one day. We wouldn't buy in the resort, just near it. We both think it's a good idea, but saving up for that down payment BRUTAL!

I was just getting use to 'disposable' income.

*sigh* If we decide on the Blue Mountain home our "Ski Destinations" list on our fridge would have to come down...

 

[ski diva]

Ski Diva - There are lots of ski resorts in the area and a beach too!

Skiing AND the beach! To me, that's the perfect combo. As a former Jersey girl, I LOVE the beach.

I'd have a hard time passing on that one.

 

[Jilly]

Water in G. Bay there isn't exactly warm, but its a real party town at the right time of year. The advantage of renting for a year is to look around a real estate values and just where you want to be, drive time to activities, grocery store, Beer store, LCBO, restaurants etc. All factors to be considered.

 

[sibhusky]

My skiing frequency improved IMMENSELY when we got a vacation home. I was pregnant at the time and our daughter started skiing when she was three and is a wonderful skier today. That wouldn't have happened if we'd had an infant to contend with every time we went skiing. Later we got dogs, which would have been more of an issue. The pressure was so much less. We had all our ski things (and underwear) up at the house, went every week (stuff in fridge didn't have a chance to go bad) and we just had to jump in the car to do it.

Initially, it was a really BAD BAD BAD investment. We bought at the height of the last real estate boom and promptly the selling prices of the units tumbled to close to half of what we paid, but by the time we sold (16 years later) we re-couped the initial price, the homeowner's fees (and they were substantial as the sports complex and most of the condos were falling to bits once the developer was out of the picture), and most everything else when we sold. My daughter WEPT that we put the place up for sale when we moved to Montana as we'd spent every Christmas there her whole life and only good things happened at the vacation house. (No school, no real housework, cool in the summer, close to the slopes, etc.)