Holiday home or extra money for vacations?

[DelightfulDilemma]

I know this is a travel forum but looking for opinions!

I have some cash to invest arising from a small inheritance. We truly don’t need this cash for anything else. We have a teen and a 7 year old. DH and I have busy careers but we usually manage a two-week holiday in Europe each year and a smaller UK holiday or visiting relatives in Europe once or twice a year of year. I do definitely want to do some big trips before my teen departs for uni so I have only a handful of years to take her to Japan and Costa Rica and New York etc.

However; dh really wants to buy a property on the south coast and has found the perfect property in our budget. It’s also accessible so my dpil could stay there whenever they like (he loves that idea). It’s within a few hours drive and he has memories of whole glorious summers with his family and cousins at the beach (who lived there). Both my dc LOVE the beach and love the idea of spending time there and dd has visions of living there in the summers during uni with friends whilst working and sunbathing and generally “living the life”. Dh and I can both wfh and so until DD steals our holiday home it is no problem to be on the south coast for four or five weeks in summer holidays, or take long weekends.

But I would still want my big holidays - I don’t want to miss out on travel and dh says that’s fine too.

However I worked out the cost of running the property would be £6k pa. And it will be £12k stamp duty and cost of furniture and unlikely to see much capital growth. So we are looking at “losing” £20k in year 1 and £6k each year subsequently.

Would you rather spend that cash on fabulous trips, or sink it into a property that gives you a relaxed beach lifestyle and an opportunity to let friends and family have lovely long weekends at the beach when we are not there?

I cannot decide!

Someone's just mentioned how every home is a holiday home in a beauty spot. What DH is remembering is before this happened. He stayed with family.

We lived abroad for a while and insurance was difficult - house couldn't be left empty much more than a month. Not sure what the rules are now. And having someone pop in for a day or so didn't really cut it.
And if around you is holiday homes then there's no one dependable to keep an eye on your property.

I've had a let property which I'm pleased to have sold. No one needs more than one home to maintain!! And it's not always summer.

Ethically no (I grew up in Pembrokeshire).

I'd not want to be tied to going to the same place for all my holidays.

Upkeep would be annoying.

Family politics.

DH's GDF bought a holiday home when he was tiny and apparently it was great when he and his cousins were little. It was used a lot. Gradually it was used less, was inherited by MIL and her 3 siblings and they disagreed on plenty of things. They sold it and it's not missed.

I’d rather chew off my toenails than have a holiday home so I’m biased (same place every holiday, yawnsville; family and friend nonsense/rows/resentment, plus when I used to be the poor relation and stayed in a family cottage I found it incredibly stressful waiting to break something; hugely expensive) but I agree this may be your dh’s dream.

Would some if not all your objectives be met by the Holiday Property Bond? In theory it’s an investment, and I’ve had nice holidays that way with both my previous and current in-laws, and there’s at least a bit of variety.

It would be a no from me.

The plus point is the familiarity and being able (theoretically) leave stuff there so pack less. But there are so many negatives.

My parents had a place in the Lake District and PIL had a house in Spain.

Things going wrong while you’re not there is a big issue. At home you’d see a leak and sort it. If its at your holiday home and nobody is there for weeks there can be a lot of damage.

Between my parents and PIL’s houses there was roof damage after a storm, flooding, boiler breaking down so no hot water on arrival, overgrown gardens and more.

You NEED to go to check up on the house even if you don’t feel like it, just to keep an eye on things.

For PIL it worked when they were retired and spent a couple of months at a time in their 2nd home. While they were working and could only go for a couple of weeks at a time, the first few days were spent sorting out problems rather than having fun.

PIL having a house in Spain was great for US as a family. We joined them most summers and had wonderful quality time with them. That is something that we and DC will always treasure. We have amazing memories.

But MIL was always slightly bitter that they didn’t get to do some of the holidays that their friends did, because they needed to go to Spain.

We have a holiday home, reasons are kind of similar to yours (it’s a connection to DH background). I love it BUT my kids are younger. I did a lot of travel pre kids and can imagine when the youngest is 8-10 I’d like to be doing big trips not just the same old. I’d want to keep it though, can imagine the kids living there temporarily in future or us WFH there for long chunks when kids are grown up (we did that pre kids).

Bear in mind the cost of maintaining and upgrading things in the house over the years. Think about your own home, even without a mortgage you probably spend money on it. Also effort, as pp have said anything involving trades is challenging when you are only there for short periods

On the other hand I actually like doing DIY and having a second property to design is fun :-)

would you consider renting it out part of the year to make some money back/not feel guilty for empty house? We do this (2-4 month lets, not air bnb)

My DH has been keen to do something similar since an inheritance. I just feel the amount of money involved in the purchase and upkeep just isn’t worth it. You could get an air bnb for the summer months and long weekends and it would make more financial sense and you could also vary the destination.

Ok, if DH doesn’t want to travels and you do, do trips with one or both DC without him. Should be possible to take DC separately as huge age gap. The advantage of this is how cheap things seem when only paying for one adult + child.

re hassle, my PIL use our place a fair bit and DH would go crazy over leaving everything clean and perfect for them, to the extent that much of the last day of holiday was spent on it. This was annoying (not least as he didn’t clean any other time!). We ended up getting a cleaner who comes on demand (lucky to find one) which is even more money but it is nice to arrive to a clean house.

Both my dc LOVE the beach and love the idea of spending time there and dd has visions of living there in the summers during uni with friends whilst working and sunbathing and generally “living the life”.

This very likely won’t pan out though as uni friends will want to be travelling themselves or back in their home town, not hanging out in Bognor Regis or wherever for eight weeks whilst DD works a holiday job.

Me and DH have completely joint money but I’d be seriously cheesed off if he wanted to use an inheritance I’d be given for a holiday home for his parents to use.

I also think it’s a bad idea for all the cost/admin reasons mentioned by PP. I think your kids will enjoy the exciting, potentially once in a lifetime trips way more.

There is a lot of debate about the costs of a second home. But ultimately This decision comes down to whether you want to go on holiday to different places each year or spend all of your future holidays in the same place. There is no right or wrong answer, some people love travelling, some people like to go to the same place every year.