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Does anyone here have 2 homes - weekend vs work week home

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I think it would be a good idea if you got it as a fixer upper and slowly made improvements. Eventually you could retire there and have a nice house for little expense.
 
Ns1 said:
this I don't get, owning property that you haven't visited in years - how do you know a squatter isn't living there?!


are you a hoarder with money by chance?
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Every once in a while (about once a year), a relative/friend will ask to use it.

I have hoarder tendencies and I make on average $2K per day. So yeah, stuff accumulates.
 
madoka said:
I remember buying that second house was a real PITA. The bank was very suspicious and felt I was going to try to rent it out or try to flip it. But, I really wanted that second house so I could buy more cars and stash all my excess stuff in it. The bank officers had a real hard time understanding that though, but after a few weeks, they relented.
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Why would they care if you're going to rent it out, flip it, or occasionally live in it?
 
madoka said:
I have three houses. Two that I use and a vacation home that I haven't been to for four years now.



I remember buying that second house was a real PITA. The bank was very suspicious and felt I was going to try to rent it out or try to flip it. But, I really wanted that second house so I could buy more cars and stash all my excess stuff in it. The bank officers had a real hard time understanding that though, but after a few weeks, they relented.



I didn't have much of a problem with having a second set of everything, since I already have too much stuff. Computers alone I'm at 17 desktop and 24 laptops. I've still got two 65" Sony TVs that I haven't unboxed for three years now. I'm actually thinking about house number four because of that. My only fear is that I'll just use it as an excuse to buy more stuff.
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That sounds like a horrible existence. Why on earth would you want to buy all of that nonsense. Sounds to me like a lack of focus in life.

And for someone who spends so much buying crap...why exactly do you need to get a bank loan on a house?
 
zinfamous said:
First of all....buying a house is a pretty terrible idea. Logically, anyway...if you are interested in accumulating some wealth that is.

http://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a-terrible-investment/
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There is something wrong with that argument... it ignores the fact that the main alternative to buying a home has almost all the same drawbacks, plus it doesn't give you possibility to sell, ever.

You choice really comes down to...

Spend $X/month, rent, at the end of Y years you got nothing.

Spend $Z/month, buy, at the end of Y years you can almost certainly sell for some net gain, unless you got caught in a housing crisis.

If Z<X, buying is the better deal by far. If Z=X, buying is still the better deal, because of the tax benefits. If X<Z, renting *might* make sense.

In the end, the worry of a house losing value and being impossible to sell is only a serious concern if your entire plan is to sell it after some years. If you intend to live in your home for the rest of your life, or keep it to use as a rental property, potential sale value is less important.
 
First, I would work on buying one home. Two sounds like a nice idea but you don't even own one yet.

I'm thinking about buying a house to use as business storage. I'm running out of storage room in my two rented public storage spaces. I really need a small warehouse but I think a house can work. I just have to be careful and not have neighbors complain about using the house for commercial use in residential area.
 
Chiropteran said:
There is something wrong with that argument... it ignores the fact that the main alternative to buying a home has almost all the same drawbacks, plus it doesn't give you possibility to sell, ever.

You choice really comes down to...

Spend $X/month, rent, at the end of Y years you got nothing.

Spend $Z/month, buy, at the end of Y years you can almost certainly sell for some net gain, unless you got caught in a housing crisis.

If Z<X, buying is the better deal by far. If Z=X, buying is still the better deal, because of the tax benefits. If X<Z, renting *might* make sense.

In the end, the worry of a house losing value and being impossible to sell is only a serious concern if your entire plan is to sell it after some years. If you intend to live in your home for the rest of your life, or keep it to use as a rental property, potential sale value is less important.
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It really depends on your perspective and what you want in life. I think you make a good argument.

It isn't an argument to not buy a house, or that some people really love to just own shit for some reason. I'm that way, too.

The problem with a house/mortgage is thus:

--dead, illiquid money. If you have a mortgage you essentially have nothing--the bank has something. But it's worse: you have debt. A lot of it. (this only matters if you truly care about maximizing value. Sure, if you have enough maximum value elsewhere, just having a house probably doesn't matter...or 2 or 3 houses to store all of your worthless yet expensive shit that is now dead money, like madoka 😵)
If no mortgage--then awesome. congrats you own something...until you die and now someone else owns it. Still, it's illiquid and you would probably be better off investing that dead value and renting.


--roots you. You are stuck. For some people, that is a terrible existence. Renting gives you far more options.

But again, it depends on your situation and what you want in life. I think owning a home is a fine thing, but I also believe that we collectively convince ourselves of illogical things in order to tolerate very bad ideas (there is no such thing as "good debt."). Maybe it's "better debt" than all the other debt.
 
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zinfamous said:
It really depends on your perspective and what you want in life. I think you make a good argument.

It isn't an argument to not buy a house, or that some people really love to just own shit for some reason. I'm that way, too.

The problem with a house/mortgage is thus:

--dead, illiquid money. If you have a mortgage you essentially have nothing--the bank has something. But it's worse: you have debt. A lot of it. (this only matters if you truly care about maximizing value. Sure, if you have enough maximum value elsewhere, just having a house probably doesn't matter...or 2 or 3 houses to store all of your worthless yet expensive shit that is now dead money, like madoka 😵)
If no mortgage--then awesome. congrats you own something...until you die and now someone else owns it. Still, it's illiquid and you would probably be better off investing that dead value and renting.
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Dead money, like the money that you spend on rent?
 
madoka said:
Have you not seen any of my other posts?

I spent $250k+ on just guns/ammo in the past three years. I spend $2K per month on just Lego. Etc.
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Is the arsenal there to defend your Lego collection?

:hmm:

shit man, I hope you are investing some of that stash...or at least planning to go out soon in a coke-filled hooker party. I mean, I don't want you to die, but do you at least have a plan?
 
Drako said:
Dead money, like the money that you spend on rent?
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Hah! kinda.

difference being you can choose to sell your house and invest that dead, illiquid money and rent if you want. In some common situations, you come out ahead. bear in mind that tons of costs are baked into rent that homeowners pay when they own. You know this, though.

Read the links, brosef. Smarter people than us understand how this works.

I know you live in the Bay Area, as did I...so this strategy doesn't make that much sense out there. 😀
 
zinfamous said:
Hah! kinda.

difference being you can choose to sell your house and invest that dead, illiquid money and rent if you want. In some common situations, you come out ahead.

Read the links, brosef. Smarter people than us understand how this works.

I know you live in the Bay Area, as did I...so this strategy doesn't make that much sense out there. 😀
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Yeh, I read the links.

What I got out of most of those is that people are too stupid to manage money, so they should just rent. 😀
 
Drako said:
You do realize those are factored into rent as well, right? If not, you have a pretty stupid slum lord. 😀
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As a former tax accountant, I would say a large majority of the rental properties I saw did not make money before factoring in depreciation.
 
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