Buying a holiday home instead of a bigger house

[pinksandgyal]

Dh and I are lucky to have good careers. We don’t have dc (can’t). We live in a large one bedroom flat in a great location. It’s enough space for two of us.

We love visiting a specific holiday destination (not UK). We could afford a small villa with pool there that we would visit and have space for family to use too.

Would we be mad to buy a second home rather than a bigger primary home? Has anyone done this?

Why not!

Assuming the property is not in your country of residence, just do speak to a local lawyer or similar about the specifics of ownership there as a foreign national as well as the more general costs, it varies so much. Also any regulations if it's used by others in your absence

No, it’s selfish.
And it’ll be cheaper to rent a property when you want to go there. I imagine you’ll occasionally want to go somewhere different anyway

I would definitely look into it if it's what you fancy!
I'm not into big houses though- more to maintain and clean etc.. why tie up your money in something you don't want or need?
Buy the house abroad or just use your money to have more holidays and do lovely things! Lucky lucky you! Enjoy!

I did that in 2006. I used the property frequently and enjoyed visiting more and more. In 2016 I moved to Portugal full time, and in 2020 the rest of my family moved over as well. My son is still in the UK (working) but visits 6-7 times a year. I now work in real estate (was previously in marketing and IT) and work with so many people who are doing exactly what you are considering.

What a judgemental post. By this reasoning we should all live in cardboard boxes?

No we should if all live in cardboard boxes

But until everyone has one reasonable house then no one should have more than that

I agree if the OP would be depriving a local family of a home by helping price them out of the market. I'm against second homes in the UK for this reason.

If it's a purpose built holiday complex I'm less bothered although I wouldn't do it myself.

By that logic, Isn’t it selfish to take up a larger property if they don’t need the space? What about all the impoverished families that can’t afford two/ three/four bedroom flats/houses? Should all of us with spare rooms downsize to ensure that people with larger families can afford a big house?

OP if you are planning to buy property in an overseas holiday destination then it’s relatively unlikely you’ll be denying a local family an affordable home. Many tourist destinations overseas expect and rely on seasonal visitors. Do your research on the implications of owning property overseas and then go for it.

I wouldn't do this, would buy a bigger, nicer property in the UK. It's always better to have a spare bedroom if you can afford to even if you mainly use it for a study or hobby room. And useful to be able to put up friends or family occasionally.

I think that sounds like a great idea. If you don't need more space at home why not. Until divorce we had a holiday home in the Med and it was lovely to have a home from home, all our stuff there and friends made. There is something really lovely about making a home somewhere, feels different to a holiday and as you don't have kids you can take advantage of off-peak flights and go there as often as you like. The only thing I would say, and this is a very privilege problem to have of course, having a holiday home does mean you forgo exploring new places as you always go back to your holiday home. But of course that's a nice 'problem' to have.

If you don't need or want a bigger property in the UK and think you'll use the holiday home, then absolutely why not. I'd love to and would buy a holiday home in a heart beat.

You’re British right? No else in the world thinks like this. Let’s all live in cardboard boxes and eat baked beans in the dark.

OP, do it and enjoy it! Rent it out to other holiday users when you’re not there, then take that money and travel. Life is too short not to.

Only problem with owning a holiday home is that you end up doing maintenance instead of being on holiday. Plus you're stuck going to the same place all the time rather than being able to explore the world. If you're happy with that it's nice to have. But we sold ours for those reasons and love going to different places all inclusive now. Much more of a relaxing break.

It wouldn't be for me because I like to go to different places but if you want to why not?

In a lot of holiday destination type places properties are often built with the aim of selling them as holiday homes or to be used as holiday rentals (eg where my sister lives in Portugal there are plenty of places like this) so assuming it's somewhere like that you wouldn't be depriving a local family of a home or killing the community or whatever. I get the PP's point if you were buying a second home in eg a UK village, pushing up prices and leaving it empty for most of the year.

It's not selfish at all if it's abroad in most cases. We bought a second home in Spain and it's the best thing we've ever done. Spain is a huge country with a moderate population, and have been selling off a huge surfeit of properties ever since the crash of 2008. It doesn't deprive anyone of a first home, and contributes to the Spanish economy.

It's fabulous to be able to travel over with no luggage whenever we want, good for our health and we've made friends. We don't feel tied, we go somewhere else whenever we want, that's a matter of your mindset. Property and the cost of living are generally much cheaper than in the UK too. It's brilliant.

you wouldn't be depriving a local family of a home

No indeed because they would move in as squatters as happened to a friend of my sister's...... What a headache!

Oh, that does sound like a nightmare! Was that in the UK or abroad? IME there's not such a big squatting culture in Southern Europe for example.

My DSIS in Portugal works as a villa manager for holiday rental owners or people who rent out their holiday homes when they're not using them. They tend to be very busy from around May to September then dead for the rest of the year. She's looked after hundreds of places over the years and will pop in maybe once a month or so to air the property but otherwise it's empty - never had any issues with squatters or burglaries etc. I think your sister must have just been very unlucky!

We have a modest holiday home in France. Not a major tourist place and our house was a smelly dump when we bought it. The agent said she hated showing people the house and held her nose when we went in. It was grim. I honestly don’t think we deprived anyone of a house. We visit frequently and friends stay (don’t rent it out commercially).

we love it as do our kids (had it 20 years now) and when we retire we will spend more time there (EU passport fortunately).

I’d go for it OP.

Another option is something called a quarter share. No. it is NOT a timeshare. In a time share you don't own the property. In a quarter share, there are up to four people who own 25% of the property and your names are on the deeds. You are responsible for the bills during your periods. The periods change each year, but every quarter gets a minimum of 2 weeks during July and August. The rest of the time is in blocks, for example from 1st February to 15th March. It is your property to do with as you want during your period there. And if one of the other quarters wants to sell, then you have the first option of buying. Lots of people do this - some on our complex have had their shares for nearly 40 years. Others started off with a quarter share and went on to buy a villa. It is an easy and relatively cheap way to dip your toe into the market. Please shout if you want any info :) https://rochabravaproperties.com/

Ridiculous hyperbole

Check the residency
We have loads of friends who cant go to their overseas homes much post Brexit due to 90/180 day rule. They can't be non Uk resident due to their jobs (and taxation)