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.
Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
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Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#22A 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
To confirm, this is your home that you built for a bit more than 50k? Incredibly nice for that price if you own it. Congrats.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#23Your 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.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#24I 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.
This differs greatly by location and investment type. Maybe this is true in the bay area, but that doesn't mean it is true in rural south africa for example.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#25It 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.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#26Renting.
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.)
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#27I 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.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#28A 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.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#29I 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 s…
You can buy an apartment in North Greece, near the sea (200-500m away) for 40k. We're talking 30-40 years old apartment, 1-3 bedrooms, etc. However, in the islands that kind of money won't get you much.
There's this app, that offers just homes in London but should offer something in GR islands soon enough... https://flyway.app/homes it's a shared ownership model, no affiliation.
Re: Ask HN: Buy a holiday house with a tight budget
#30Qualifying 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.