Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget

> What are the options you would consider?

Renting in different places until I found somewhere that I wanted to go back to year after year.

If you find a location that you prefer over vacationing somewhere new (or at least, if you find a routine that you enjoy), then consider buying in that location. The boating equivalent of your question might be “I think I like water, although I’ve never been on a boat. Which boat should I buy for $100k?”

As far as countries, decide whether you want to be on a lake or the ocean. Lakes have major advantages: no salt damage, far wider geographic selection, often easier to use the water (gradual slope into water, less impact from wind, tides, currents), and less erosion/property maintenance. In North America, “ocean” often means Mexico, though $500k would buy a small beachfront condo in a lot of the US.

So, go on Airbnb or VRBO and rent some lakefront or oceanfront houses for a week or a month. After a few trips, see what you like - or if you enjoy new scenery each trip. Each location doesn’t matter as much as seeing a wide variety so you learn from each experience. Enjoy :-)

I never really understood this. Unsure of the US, but holiday lets are notorious for being poor investments in Europe (just look at the markets in Greece and Spain). $100k buys you quite a lot of long-term lets (rentals) over the next 20 years. Why not just rent a place without the hassle of maintenance, taxes, stress, and hand back the property after a few weeks? Also your priorities and interests might change, so some flexibility on renting different places at different points (with children that grow up and also have different interests) might be appealing.

A lot of discussions around "investments" but large purchases (or any) don't have to always be framed around extracting money back out of it; there are better things to optimize for, like happiness, enjoyment, experiences, etc...(do these all fall under happiness umbrella?)

If you're dunking $100k on a second house just for vacationing with your family, IMO, if 15 years later it ends up being $0 on paper, who cares, it's what you did with the time there that will really pay dividends.

Edit: Mexico, I'd personally look at Mexico.

Renting.

I observe in myself this weird thing: Buying an RV feels like an investment, but renting one feels like throwing money away. But in actual fact, buying an RV is throwing away much more money than renting one. And I probably would not ever use the RV enough for it to be a winning proposition to buy one.

Now, a vacation home is different, because you can resell it when you're done with it. By the time you pay taxes and maintenance over the years, though... are you really very much ahead compared to renting? (I haven't done the numbers. I don't know. But I'd encourage you to look very carefully at whether buying is really what you want to do.)

Your requirements have a bit of a contradiction. Normally if you have a tight budget you won't be considering traveling every year overseas for holidays.

The best thing for a tight budget would be to buy local (meaning in your country) so you can use it more often.

I feel like this is a question of what you're willing to be a slave to and realistic expectations as to how truly "wealthy" people have second homes.

For example, my parents love Cape Cod - they've vacationed there for nearly 20 years every summer for 20 years, renting each time for a few weeks. Until recently, the economics never made sense to buy - only last year did rental prices exceed basically what they could afford. Generally, I'd say rent.

That said, I also have family who own multiple beach houses in CA. Even though they're worth millions, they still rent out their beach houses when they're not using them on high-end rental sites. They've used VRBO but generally use higher end services. The key here is that even rich people view a second home as a loss-leading asset and try to have it generate income in the off season, on the east coast this is basically a lost cause if the home is in a vacation town that's dead in the winter.

With only $100k I'd say keep your money and keep renting, you keep all the upside and pay a small premium. If you really want to own something you'll just need more money.

Just some random thoughts.

1) If you really want to, you can probably take out a loan and buy/build some kind of summer house with $100K savings. That's more than enough for a solid down payment and the needed extra expenses, or even buying something in cash if you're willing to sacrifice on the size/location of the property and quality of the house, depending on your desired living standards.

2) If your budget truly is already tight, perhaps going to buy a second house might not be the wisest move heading into a potentially very rough economy. Perhaps you can reduce those concerns by AirBnB'ing it, but take into account that in a down-economy excess travel is going to take a hit too.

3) Depending on many factors I can't possibly evaluate (age, health, relationship status, kids, life satisfaction and mental state, etc) an optimal middle ground might be to try and save more cash and evaluate where the economy is in the next couple of years. Being cash-rich when there's a downturn is a great spot to be in.

A second home mortgage is a tricky thing. It’s doubly (triply?) tricky if it’s happening in a country where you aren’t living. With mortgage rates on the rise this is something I’d proceed with only after a lot of research. Buying as not a local means you will be limited where you can buy, legal fees will be high, and you will need some sort of caretaker.

There are many articles on the subject though, ex: https://vacationhome.guide/second-home-mortgage-guide/

"Hacker News"

dang, you are overseeing this site turning into reddit. Check all the Ask HN from the last week and you'll see many that are completely off topic.

A house on the beach in South Africa (outside Cape Town) costs about that. Aztir[0] was a bit more but it's three bedrooms and I plan to spend Northern Hemisphere winters there to get two summers a year and rent it out to nomads the rest of the time. Second part of the plan is still a WIP so can't comment as to its success yet.

[0] https://aztir.com

100k is a good down payment, surely you can find a beachside condo at 500k somewhere on the east coast. Can’t speak to the west coast.

You can likely get some revenue back from it by Airbnbing it out when you aren’t around.

Timeshares are an option, a lot of them are scams but some people do have success with them if you do your research.

Ultimately don’t make yourself house poor. 100k also buys a lot of stays at beach hotels or trips to Mexico, DR etc.

I have a partially renovated little village house with a small backyard and shed about 19km from Fugueira da Foz Portugal I will sell you for the €24k I have stuck in it. The interior needs doing but the roof is new… near Montemor-o-velho…

The tax is 40€ (forty euros) a year. South facing king roof slope ideal for panels and south facing varanda over the backyard.

I would simply recommend you to wait. It's not a good time to invest in real estate now, prices are historically out of norm. For something as optional as a holiday house, you should wait for better market conditions.

I would look at land in northern California and build a rustic cottage. Depending on how close to the sea you want, you should be able to find a an acre or two for 5OK. The other 50k would cover the cottage, a nice deck, and wood fired hot tub.

Certainly a project, but if you are into that sort of thing, it is half the fun.

My main consideration would be drivable access from the bay area, but your constraints may differ. If I need a plane to go there, I am unlikely to visit frequently.

Second home financing can secured for 10% down. I think you could Airbnb it out to cover some costs, and it wouldn't be mortgage fraud as long as you use it yourself at least 10% of the time.

So one idea would be to put down $40k on a $400k property and hold at least $40k in cash as reserves just in case.

If you're open to Europe, some affordable cities with beaches include Valencia or Malaga in Spain, and Antalya in Turkey.

You could get that off the coast of Borneo. Perhaps not the oil towns, but not too bad.

Kota Kinabalu is about $50k-$160k on a random search, and it's got one of the most international airports in the world. Something half an hour away should be both prettier and cheaper. Good seafood. Mt Kinabalu is a balance of epic and peaceful. It's a decent place to retire.

Qualifying it with "near the sea" and NOT seaside you could include some of Baja, Mexico areas around Rosarito. $100k these days though won't get you the best place, but if you could swing $200k you can get a condo in an older building and/or a small house.

You can purchase something in a village between Rosarito / Ensenada for $100k too.

North Carolina shoreline if in the US.

(Due to balance of cost, projected appreciation in that area, and ability to rent the property ).

If just looking for something… fun.

St Croix could be an option.

Or Puerto Rico.

Lima, Peru has some okay condos in Miraflores and Barranco that might fit your budget / needs.

It might be cheaper in the end to rent a domestic property you can drive to than to pay international airfare for a family, even if you’ve already paid for the lodging.

How much are you under on your first house?