Kids will be off to college in 4 years and we want to buy a place for summers and occasional winter trips somewhere south of Virginia. My wife and I are in our early 40’s and can afford something in the $300K range. We are looking for a nice quiet town with good restaurant options and a not so crowded beach.
Would love your input for below 2 things.
What town would you consider if you lived in NJ like us? We will primarily use for summer but we would like to visit during spring break, Christmas break etc. And once kids are gone to college we will use it for occasional winter times once we are bored of the cold. Florida too far. Virginia not hot enough in winter.
What are some disadvantages of not being so close to your summer house?
Unless you have a management agent, you will always worry about it whenever there is adverse weather. When we used to have a weekend home outside of NYC, there were times when we had to get there because of sudden freeze, snow storm, or water leak. We also felt like we should spend most of our vacation time at our second home. In hind sight, we would have been better off to spend the money at some of the most expensive hotels or airbnb now (so much easier and carefree). We were always cleaning and working in the second home, whereas if we had stayed at an hotel, our beds would have been made and bathrooms cleaned. Oh, and our weekend home didn’t appreciate at all. Just my .02.
Relative has 3 houses in the Outer Banks and she lives in NJ as well. At least once per year the area gets hit with a storm/hurricane/flood. Being 10 hours away makes it extremely difficult to survey damage. Need to be dependent on contractors/handymen from the area to fix things. Obviously gets expensive and not there to inspect work being done. Appreciation has been minimal at best. Probably lost money after all of the maintenance and expenses.
Personally, I love Sandbridge VA which is on the Southern tip of VA. Beautiful beaches, shopping and civilization. Easy ride off season. $300K you’d be looking at Condos
I owned a condo in Miami Beach, 3 hour flight from NYC area. Shorter then any car ride to any other state. Miami airport is 8 miles from the beach.
Fort Lauderdale is also another easy airport in/out to the beach area.
I wouldn’t rule out Florida as value for the dollar is great IMO.
You came thru again. Appreciate all the help and guidance you provided in years. Question, will your view change if we got a condo instead of a house? A condo in a high rise somewhere in Florida?
Thanks. Our neighbors do the same. They have a condo in Jupiter, Florida and they hunt for cheap tickets and fly there multiple times in winter just to get away from cold and catch a break. Multiple 4 day weekends in winter keeps them sane and they are kind of the inspiration for us.
One other thing to consider is how you’ll deal with transportation in your vacation location. Will you keep a vehicle there or rent one every time? Few places in Florida, NC or SC will have comprehensive enough public transportation that you’ll want to depend on that, so you need to think about how you’ll get around. Car culture - spread out areas, plenty of grocery shopping but probably not in walking distance, few sidewalks - means unless you find a unicorn situation you’ll want or need access to a car there.
I would suggest somewhere on the Florida coast between Jacksonville and Ft Lauderdale.
My daughter went to school in Melbourne and it has some really nice beaches and is low key. I like Cocoa Beach but not the commercial part. If you go south on the A1A, there are a lot of old beach towns that are close enough to bigger towns or cities if you like to eat out occasionally, but not big enough to attract renters.
If you fly into Orlando (tons of cheap flights from NY/NJ), it’s about an hour to the beach. I like St Augustine Beach too.
My sister has a condo at Seabrook, outside of Charleston. She rents it out when she is not using it. She lives 2-3 hours from the condo. Two years ago the condo association decided it was mandatory to replace all of their balconies, and it cost her close to $100K. This past summer, they found out the construction was not up to par and had to be re-done. No additional cost, but the condo couldn’t be used/rented out for 4-6 months. She has had it for less than 4 years and she is ready to get rid of it.
Sorry to be downer on this. I am sure there are a lot of people here with much better experience than me. I just feel with 300K you could go to so many places without a lot of hassle.
Someone above mentioned Jupiter, FL. That’s close to the Palm Beach airport, which is much smaller that Ft Lauderdale airport. Most of us will happily pay a little more to use this airport.
How close do you want to be to activities, like restaurants, outdoor malls, events? Do you want to be near the ocean?
@ArdenNJ We had the same idea as you, but we always come back with the same concerns:
What do we do with the time when we aren't there? Renting the place out during non-travel seasons can be tough, who would want to live, say 9 months out of 12? If we don't rent it out, it seems like a waste of money.
We don't really want to stay at the same place when we travel. We are are big on travelling and we love seeing new places each time. Most of our travels are also international. If we owned a second place, we are obligate to spend time there. We don't want to give up our freedom
My husband isn't big on retiring in a vacation location. He wants to live in the big city or at a university town. So owning the place far away from where we eventually want to retire doesn't make sense either.
So, if we ever have a second vacation home, we would 1) Not worrying about renting it out, 2) Close enough (a couple of hours) so that we can have get-away weekends without losing all the time on the road. We would think of this property as a nice to have but won't change our lifestyle or travel habit significantly. This way the kids (and their friends) or husband and I, or the family, can hang out there during spring-break, quick weekend get-away, or whenever block of time we have without bogging it down to spending all our vacation time through out the entire year in that house just because we had it.
You might want to think about those points before you purchase your second home.
My cousin and her husband bought a second home in the Vero Beach area (John’s Island). I’m not a huge fan of FL, but liked Vero Beach. It has lots of recreational and cultural activities. We usually have a March family reunion there. This is the first time in 5 years that we haven’t visited in March.
There are lots of pros and cons to owning a second property. We have a vacation home that’s 100 miles and an hour ferry trip from our main residence. Pros: kids love it and will always visit, amazing beaches, beautiful ocean environment, great restaurants and fishing, fairly easy to visit for the weekend, and most important—wonderful fun times with family and friends. Also, we get big $$$ for rental during high season (August) that covers all expenses.
Cons: you need a caretaker or someone to handle issues that come up; plus caretakers can help get repair people quickly. Of course, stuff always goes wrong when you aren’t there. Renting is always worrisome. We use a real estate agency, but you can get the renters from hell. We got lucky and havevavoided that and have had the same extended family rent for the last 6 years. Friends love to invite themselves. I got a call from a friend who said—“I’m planning my summer and just wondering when you want to invite us ? (This was before COVID). You can get tired of entertaining, so you have to learn to say No!!