Would you buy a holiday home and sacrifice holidays abroad?

[WhereIsTheSaladDoris]

Definitely not a stealth boost but I’m in conflict right now in what to do. I can’t talk to family / friends due to their personal situations and it would be unwise and unfair.

We’ve been saving for years, for a “rainy day” and our investments mean we now have enough to purchase a decent caravan or put a deposit down in an apartment.

DH wants to buy a place and I’d prefer that over a caravan. If we do that, it’s a commitment.

We wouldn’t rent out (perhaps to family/close friends) and would have all holidays in that location (looking at Devon). It would mean no holidays abroad (normally once a year) but more time spent in that location (one of us in education so half term and summer holidays could be at the holiday place). The area we like we know fairly well.

These are the types of places we’re looking at:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72298794.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71549115.html listed building so I’m a bit put off

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82926667.html

Then in the next breath, the panic sets in and I think about risk of being out of a job / how others are less fortunate to not even have one house let alone too (guilt) / the pressure to keep a second home.

Anyone made a decision like this and regretted it? Do the benefits outweigh the potential risks?

We jointly own a holiday cottage with PILs in an increasingly touristy area. We love it and go every month-6 weeks. It works for us because:

PILs bought it outright as an investment so we only pay a contribution towards running costs (we will eventually become liable for half total costs with DBIL)

Currently we can afford holidays to other places as well as visits to the family holiday home

It's an hour drive from us so we regularly go up on Friday night after work for the weekend as well as longer holidays

It has a fully kitted out kitchen so we can wash clothes/keep things clean (useful with DC)

It's 3 bedroom so we can visit with friends/other family as a meet up

The neighbours are friendly (have a key in case of emergencies) and are happy for us to be part of village life when we are there (DH family have been going for years so the village have seen them grow up and come back with their own DC)

We love the area in all seasons - most things are open year round and there are endless natural areas for walks/cycling as well as coast in driving distance

Downsides (mostly felt by PIL currently):
They often have to visit for maintenance or deliveries

Running costs are high and more in winter

Expensive insurance due to winter risks

Area is often cut off in winter and access can be difficult

Some cleaning/maintenance is a normal part of most visits

Our DC are only young so no regular commitments to sports clubs etc - I think we will visit less at weekends when they are older

It is the place of some of our loveliest memories And we will sacrifice other things in the future to hold onto this place.

No because like other posters I am absolutely against owning second homes particularly those that are going to sit empty for months of the year when local people are priced out of the area.

You don't need to own a house to go on holiday, it's ridiculous.

I have been looking at buying somewhere small, or building something small in the forest of dean. We go several times of the year (we’re here right now), I had looked at a static, but with sight fees, buying the static etc it isn’t any cheaper than a small property, plus a static has a fairly short life span.

I had a look at a few bits of land for sale on Thursday, all with planning permission and still very reasonably priced.

You seem pretty set already - why do you even ask people’s opinions if you have made your mind up already.

No way. I live in Cornwall and I think I'd better keep to myself what I think about second home owners.

I have a holiday home in France (inherited). It has been in the family for years. My children (now in their 20s) loved returning to the same place every year and finding old acquaintances and small changes. They loved the little familiarities and having their own room with their toys and books. I thought they would get bored but they still go every year now. They invite friends and show them round. There are downsides as many others have mentioned. But for building family memories it has been wonderful and I would not hesitate to recommend the idea.

Actually @Strugglingtodomybest I think people should be told what it's like to have a town/village full of second homes and the impact on the local community and economy. Go for it!

My friend lived in a really fancy apartment development close to the beach with amazing views. He said from October to Easter it was deserted, there were only 3 or 4 flats that were permanently occupied.
And because they were mostly second homes there was no community, no accountability and no respect for the permanent residents.

You say you have enough for a deposit for a holiday home - how will you find the rest? There are limited mortgage products - buy to let mortgages don’t apply, a holiday let business mortgage would presumably require you to let it out. Most likely you’d need to remortgage your current home to pay for it.

If money was no object I’d have a static caravan on a site on the beach 60 mins from our home. We’ve looked at some in the past. It feels like a holiday there, rather than in a tiny flat. But as pps have pointed out the site fees are huge, they depreciate quickly in value, and the children’s weekends are full of sport.

If you love Devon and want to live there full time at some point - do it now and move there permanently. You say one of you is in education and the other works flexibly and the elderly parents are not necessarily living nearby - so why not? Don’t wait for tomorrow to live your dreams if you can make it happen now.

And regarding elderly parents - we are hopefully moving, to the area we’ve always wanted to live. I was dreading telling my mum, in the split second after I told her she said “I’m coming too”. I didn’t know that she’d decided her house and garden were too much work, but she didn’t know where to move to as no nice bungalows near us, and her local ties are weakened (or shown to be weak) by lockdown. Win-win.

Everyone gets so up in arms about 2nd home owners in holiday towns but the people I know who own them found them much cheaper in the long run vs a wk or 2 in a holiday rental. Also plenty of parts of London suffer from this, my friend bought in a swanky block, they had 2 neighbours. All the flats were owned by overseas investors & tons sat empty. Plus loads of (born & raised) Londoners are priced out & social housing tenants are often moved outwards. Many don't have sympathy for those people & the mantra is often can't afford it, move out.

@thisisbobbins

The staggering number of empty second homes in Cornwall revealed
www.google.com/amp/s/www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/staggering-number-empty-second-homes-1911950.amp

Which then leads to stuff like this:
Second home owners block Cornish fishermen's attempt to build new jetty
www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/01_january/19/cornish.shtml

It isn't good for communities at all imo. I'm also fed up of being told that new housing developments are needed for locals. If 1 I 20 houses weren't second homes then we wouldn't need to build more would we?

Ironically, the second home owners are destroying the countryside they claim to love. Just come down and stay in a hotel for God's sake.

We have toyed with the idea , as somewhere we can spend a good portion of the year as we look to retirement . Things that have put me off are the extremely high site fees of the mobile home sites I've looked at (over £5,000pa for some!!), the site restrictions and also seeing the impact of Covid on our movements . A flat with no garden is now definitely out (we were thinking of downsizing here too) and the idea of having somewhere that you had invested in but you aren't allowed to go to, I would find that so more frustrating than simply not being able to book a holiday home .

@gogorogo

Everyone gets so up in arms about 2nd home owners in holiday towns but the people I know who own them found them much cheaper in the long run vs a wk or 2 in a holiday rental. Also plenty of parts of London suffer from this, my friend bought in a swanky block, they had 2 neighbours. All the flats were owned by overseas investors & tons sat empty. Plus loads of (born & raised) Londoners are priced out & social housing tenants are often moved outwards. Many don't have sympathy for those people & the mantra is often can't afford it, move out.

Exactly, second homes are bad for everyone apart from the selfish people that own them.

I definitely would not buy a second home in an area of the country in which such properties were having a serious negative effect on local people and local communities.

In areas such as Cornwall & the Lake District locals are being priced out of the market by incomers who buy up houses and only occupying them for a few weeks a year. It’s a shitty, selfish thing to do and very high taxes should be imposed on second homes in these areas.

@AdriannaP

You seem pretty set already - why do you even ask people’s opinions if you have made your mind up already.

Because I wanted to and isn’t that what MN is about? Or is it for only people who are completely undecided on any decision in their life and therefore MN can provide the absolute opinion and solution

I’ve unknowingly stepped into a sensitive issue re: second homes. I get it. It is one of my biggest concerns but it isn’t my DH’s. And I am torn by what to do, so actually, no, we haven’t made our minds up.

However, assumptions have been made based on little information I’ve provided. Due to being on MN long enough to know I’ll be judged, I’ve held back on info (and to protect my anonymity too).

Caravans are not my favourite holidays. They’re good for some people but I just don’t find them enjoyable. DH would get a static caravan tomorrow but it’s me put off by site fees, depreciation of the van and the type of holiday it’d be each time we went.

Apartment / flat - our normal type of holiday is a self catering one in decent apartments, both UK and abroad. Concerns re: garden is something that isn’t a concern to us, but a balcony of some sort would be good. Perhaps romanticising it, but I like the ‘idea’ of setting up the apartment to be a place ‘home from home’. That I can say to a friend or family member, here’s the keys, get away for the weekend. You don’t know my personality but I’m the kind of person to give away stuff to help others, and I love the idea of helping our a family member or friend who can’t afford a holiday, by allowing them to stay there.
Of course the reality of running a second home, as many have mentioned, isn’t like fabulous (Eg maintenance, smaller than your actual home, location etc) and I need to work through these with DH.

Held back on my OP, is that we could also afford holidays abroad; with family all over the world and us being huge savers and spend very little on ourselves, we’d comfortably be able to manage an abroad holiday once a year.

The saving for the end goal is here and now’s the decision time. Whatever the purchase, it would be a long term investment with a plan to either keep it as BTL / rental holiday place, or sell and buy bigger with the view to moving to Devon in 10 years.

OP you've changed the goalposts massively from what you originally said, which was that you wouldn't rent it out and it would replace the holidays abroad.

If you'd said that in the first place I suspect a lot of responses would have been very different.

@titchy

OP you've changed the goalposts massively from what you originally said, which was that you wouldn't rent it out and it would replace the holidays abroad.

If you'd said that in the first place I suspect a lot of responses would have been very different.

I haven’t said I’d rent it out so I haven’t changed my goalposts.

I said if we brought, it could become a long term investment in 10 years time, but it’s still if’s / buts / maybe’s. The initial purchase of it would be for us only, and not BTL.

Whatever the purchase, it would be a long term investment with a plan to either keep it as BTL / rental holiday place, or sell and buy bigger

That seems clear you'd regard it as a rental?

How are you reading it differently to how I wrote it?

To be clear, any purchase now, would not be a BTL. I don’t know if we’d do BTL in the future. We may. We may not. If we did, it would be in 10 + year but the purchase now is not even considering BTL as that was never the goal.

Fair enough.

In that case, given that it won't restrict you going abroad, and that you are prepared to rent it out in the future then go for it.

I think the moral aspect is slightly more justified if it's occupied a lot, either by you, friends, or rented to holiday makers. At least the local economy benefits. But leaving it empty for 45 weeks a year isn't beneficial to anyone except you.

I’m not actually in the town you’re looking at OP, I’m slightly further along the coast. I know Dawlish pretty well though and I can’t imagine ever being able to enjoy being on holiday in a place where locals really resent you.

My road has 14 houses on it, my house and 1 other have families living in them all the time the rest are about 50% holiday lets, 50% second homes. It’s fucking awful. I have a drive that is constantly blocked during the summer months, I can’t actually leave my house at all at this moment without clambering over someone’s bonnet as there is someone directly in front of my gate as well. I swim year round and have been told to fuck off multiple times by people on jet skis or boats when I’ve either asked them to respect the 5 knot limit or not moor on the sea grass bed. I could spend all day listing the issues we have with second home owners but you clearly don’t care so just crack on, everyone else does. If you truly loved the area as you claim to though you wouldn’t fuck it up by buying a second home.

You haven’t stated your reasons for not renting the place out but if you did then that would make it an easy choice between holidays there or abroad and if you made a good investment, in a place with a good rental market, the cost and headache of maintenance would largely be taken care of by rental income and a management company. I would also advise you not to underestimate how much of a headache and possible emotional challenge it would be to change a place that you’ve kept for just your use for years to a rental property. The accumulation of stuff, the idea of strangers using possibly precious furniture etc will make it hard to switch.

To the poster suggesting everyone go to Cornwall and stay in a hotel ... I think maybe you haven’t really thought that through. I get that second homes sitting empty much of the year are a problem in some places but it isn’t exclusive to Devon and Cornwall. Someone has to own holiday rental properties and I don’t believe anyone held a gun to vendors’ heads when they sold houses for big profits to non locals.

and I don’t believe anyone held a gun to vendors’ heads when they sold houses for big profits to non locals.

Good point, why are the buyers the baddies but never the sellers?

I could spend all day listing the issues we have with second home owners but you clearly don’t care so just crack on, everyone else does

@HandsomeMaid Fucking hell, projecting your anger on me isn’t going to help you is it? Since when have I said in any of my posts that I don’t care!

I’m genuinely appalled at the things you’ve listed but don’t for a second think that “every” second home owner is going to be like that. It’s appalling if people are making it miserable for you and I hope the list of shit you’re dealing with reduces or stops soon.

We bought a fab static caravan at Devon Cliffs in Exmouth and go there as much as we can. Family and friends stay there and its beautifully quiet out of season. Have you looked at their website. Ours was second hand but sleeps 6 and has all the mod cons.

If it was my money I would love a camper van or RV. You can holiday anywhere in driving distance (so including abroad).
You said on your holidays abroad you are 'forced' to relax. What do you actually do/want to do on holiday? I think it depends what you want from a holiday.