Full time but still own property. Good or Bad?

[lappir]

I thought I'd never stop working. But that seems to have changed. I finished my last Travel Contract in February 2023 and haven't taken a Nursing paycheck since. Planned to over the winter, but things didn't work out as I expected and I'm sort of glad. 

The past year I've been able to survive on the SS monthly payment and have dipped into one of my retirement accounts for a little extra, but the advisor assures me it won't cause me to go "Broke". 

I've spent the past few winters in the lower Midwest and  have enjoyed some cold and snowy weather without the deep freezes of the Midwest where I grew up and am thinking about purchasing a spot to park during the winter months October to May and they I will head to the cooler weather locations during the Summer. If I can finally get the job I've been waiting to interview for in this location, the decision would be made. Since it's still not certain, I'm wondering if I should proceed in the acquisition of one of the two plots I have looked at. I know I will be here again next winter and the spot I have stayed at is in a good location, but it's also near an ambulance service that uses their sirens every single time they go on a call. 

So I'm asking. Is real estate really the best investment? 

 

Rod

[Chalkie]

1 hour ago, lappir said:

So I'm asking. Is real estate really the best investment? 

Real estate can be a great investment but is not necessarily the best as it can depreciate if not cared for. Land on the other hand can't really depreciate but it can appreciate greatly depending on location. 

Personally I wish I had thought of buying a bit of unrestricted land prior to retirement so it would have been paid off by retirement time.  

[jbh]

A few problems with bare land when you're not present are squatters, liability and illegal dumping.

[Kirk W]

I answered the poll based on our time as fulltimers, even though things have changed and we are no longer RVing. Today there are any still working fulltimers but this group seems to remain mostly retired.  I was fortunate to have worked for a company that had a great, early retirement plan and was able to retire permanently at the age of 57.  We went fulltime, selling the house and all that we could not carry with us and we never looked back. Retiring that early, neither social security or 401k money were available so we began to do RV volunteer positions that supplied a full hookup site and usually some other amenities as part of our budget control. I was given a pension with a "bridge to social security" by so doing we were able to live reasonably well and travel on the money available. About 5 years into our fulltime we began to both draw social security and I lost the bridge part of my pension. In our 12 years of fulltime RVing we did not own any real property and liked it that way because it simplifies life. After 10 years we began to look at acquiring some sort of real estate to park on and in year 11 we did purchase in a co-op community that was similar to the Escapee co-ops but not part of that system. 

4 hours ago, lappir said:

Is real estate really the best investment? 

This is another question with no single answer. To be the best possible investment the real estate must be in the right location and circumstances. That is even more true if it has a home base since you might change your mind about where you wish to settle once you stop RVing. If you buy some raw land in an area that will soon be developed, or where they discover minerals, or some other trigger it will prove to be wonderful. On the other hand, if you buy property with a house and a natural disaster should happen, then not so much. We invested the proceeds from the sale of our house when we left it and then used that money to buy a home when we left the fulltime lifestyle.

For us, the freedom from real property was part of what made life so great.  It meant that we had no one place that had to return unless we chose to do so. We did have an annual doctor visit due to Pam's continuing prescription medicines, but we made those appointments at our conveience. 

Edited April 12 by Kirk W
add a thought

[sandsys]

What we did was buy a membership in a park where we returned every year. That way, they did all the upkeep.

Linda

[FULLTIMEWANABE]

Our dilemma for the past handful of years yearning to go full time has been giving up all investments in Real Estate, especially when for the past multi decades it's been what has given us income and built our net worth.   Finally we have been blessed with our daughter and her husband (married last September) taking over this place and moving in on the 1st May.   It's a win win for us all, we keep our investment, and they have a place to live whilst saving (if they ever do!!!) for their own future place or inherit this one eventually).   It gives us a place to come "home" to at any juncture and site our RV until in a couple or three years or maybe longer seeing how we feel on the road FT, build a small bungalow which we have permission up to a set square footage to do so as well as a large accessory shed so ......

For us our comfort level is definitely to maintain vested in some form of real estate, but having had rentals for many years in the past = so glad never to deal with tenants again, albeit that helped increase our retirement account for sure also, and not to have any unoccupied property, if they weren't moving in we for sure would have sold everything just purely for peace of mind whilst away, but equally I'd be concerned with current market trends rising rapidly how we'd ever replace in the future financially if we had to.    We for sure intend to settle down near our daughter and her future family so .........

To each and everyone their own, and as always we all have opinions and different personalities that make us each kind of unique in our decisions - neither option is right or wrong when it comes to keeping real estate or not.  It's all down to the individual's perspective on handling tenants at a distance or vacant property/land and inevitable issues that come with it, or not having that added stress I guess.

[GlennWest]

We sold everything when we went full time. Lot of cost in keeping a place. Don't regret it. Our home was in NC and they heavy on taxes. We like Texas better. We have bought property here and setting up on it. 

[kb0zke]

When we hit the road in 2014, we had some things stored with family members, but everything else was with us in the Foretravel. Five years ago we got our lot here at The Ranch, so now we're here for the winter and can change out stuff as needed.

We traveled for several years before deciding on getting a winter base. Most of the Escapees co-ops have waiting lists and require a visit prior to getting on the waiting list. There are also parks that have some lots with long-term lease arrangements, so be sure to check out the various options.

We have a couple of lots coming up here due to current leaseholders moving to a fixed location close to doctors. That can be an issue for some, so as you look around be sure to keep that in mind if it applies to you.

[2gypsies]

We 'retired' early at 55 due to downsizing. Sold everything - lived in a 2500 sq ft lakeside home in Michigan. We knew we didn't want to stay in Michigan with the winters and we definitely didn't want to rent out our home when not there.  We wanted to travel. We full-timed for 16 years with a lot of volunteering for a campsite in our national and state parks. We loved AZ in the winter so eventually got a lot at the Benson SKP Coop for the winters.  At one time we also had a lot in Washington at Chimicum SKP park. However, we felt staying there in the summer really curtailed our traveling so that was sold. 

As we aged and having seen all the places we wanted... many over and over and as the crowds came to be and reservations were a must we sold the RV.

We have now bought a 1100 sq ft home with mountain views in a very active retirement town in AZ (not a planned inclusive community). It came completely furnished down to linens and pots and pans. We didn't have to buy a thing.  It's near excellent medical, cultural and outdoor activities. Our kids didn't stay in Michigan either and now live in the West.  We felt if owning property while RVing you feel committed to using it for a chunk of time.  What we did worked great for us.

Edited April 12 by 2gypsies

[rickeieio]

Many factors here.  If you buy property, be certain what you'd like to do is allowed.  County and state codes, and zoning, are factors.

And then there's the old saying that land is always a good investment.  Ain't so.  As an example, my dad bought a chunk of land in 1987 for a reasonable price.  He maintained it, (bush hogged about 60 acres), built a barn, and paid property taxes on it until he passed in 2006, when he left it in a trust for us kids.  We sold it in 2020 and "made" a little over $200k profit.  However, if Dad had put that same amount in the S&P, without considering property taxes and maintenance costs, we would have realized over $3m profit.

So, perhaps you should leave your investment capital intact and live off the earnings.

[Randyretired]

We purchased some property in AZ for our winter time spot.  For us it worked out well.  We fenced it so we could have a place for our dog and built a shed for some storage and bought a used washing machine and dryer.  It was really nice to know we always had a spot that fit our needs with an address for mail and shipping.  I also like to do my own maintenance.  We bought this lot 24 years ago and it worked great.  Now I am trying to decide if we should keep it as health issues are restricting our travel.  I think it is worth more, a lot more than we invested but with inflation I am not sure it is any more valuable and of course there are capital gains taxes.  Still we didn't buy it to make money.  It did what we hoped.  We had the convenience of a comfortable place to stay and when we sell it all things considered we were able to use it for those years for free.  Some say when you have a place you feel you have to use it and we always started our winter adventures there but we also moved around as we wanted.  Sort of a winter home base but we haven't been able to be there for 3 years so...? 

[sandsys]

2 hours ago, Randyretired said:

We purchased some property in AZ for our winter time spot.  For us it worked out well.  We fenced it so we could have a place for our dog and built a shed for some storage and bought a used washing machine and dryer.  It was really nice to know we always had a spot that fit our needs with an address for mail and shipping.  I also like to do my own maintenance.  We bought this lot 24 years ago and it worked great.  Now I am trying to decide if we should keep it as health issues are restricting our travel.  I think it is worth more, a lot more than we invested but with inflation I am not sure it is any more valuable and of course there are capital gains taxes.  Still we didn't buy it to make money.  It did what we hoped.  We had the convenience of a comfortable place to stay and when we sell it all things considered we were able to use it for those years for free.  Some say when you have a place you feel you have to use it and we always started our winter adventures there but we also moved around as we wanted.  Sort of a winter home base but we haven't been able to be there for 3 years so...? 

With your description I suspect you will have multiple offers if you decide to sell it here. Good luck whatever you decide.

Linda

[lappir]

Thank you to everyone who shared their experiences and thoughts. 

I am trying very hard to do my due diligence with the city, county and state to make sure I don't have a surprise later. 

The property isn't exactly bare land. In 2020 there was a fire and a "Mobile Home" was destroyed. Also at that time the power was disconnected and never turned back on. There is a "Well" on the property, but until power is hooked back up (or maybe I can take my generator out) I won't know if it still works. The most recent owner put an inexpensive metal building up and it looks like never used it. Trash still remains from the fire and I wonder if it was also used as a "Dump" by someone. One of the "Google" earth views shows a pile of something and there are still "Tire" tracks in that area, but it doesn't look like the loaded and moved the stuff. Most likely buried. If I only could determine what it was. 

Monday the power company is coming out to review what it will take to bring power back. I have spoke with an "Environmental" inspector, but their "Phase 1" evaluation is what I've already done so I'm not paying them $2000 to tell me what I already know. I did not inquire what the "Phase II" evaluation would be where they would actually probe and maybe take some soil samples. Probably a lot more than what the property is worth. 

The Poll will stop in a month. I will continue to check for replies and post if anything interesting comes up on my side. 

I've spent the past several winters in the area, but was still working. I've enjoyed this winter not working and am pretty sure that will continue. I won't be staying in the summer months though unless I find a good job that doesn't keep me too busy. 

 

Rod

 

[Dutch_12078]

Like Kirk, I answered the poll as if we were still fulltiming. When we decided to go fulltime in 2020, we sold our mountain top home on 400 acres of woodland. But we also owned a couple of lakeside acres with a small summer use cottage on it that we kept. Over the years, we remodeled the cottage into a year round use home with a full hookup RV site next door. Our costs to maintain the cottage have been minimal, and our twin daughters that live nearby have done a great job of taking care of the lawn,the beach, and the dock, as  well as making sure the cottage was secure and any problems were promptly taken care of.

We planned on the cottage being our exit plan when it was time to hang up the keys, but we didn't expect that to happen quite as soon as it did. Last winter while we were in Florida, my wife's COPD flared up, putting her in the hospital for a week and on oxygen 24/7, and then the day after we parked at the cottage in April, I had a fortunately fairly mild stroke that affected my speech and mobility. We did manage stays at a few NY state parks last summer, but then my wife found out her glaucoma was getting worse and she would soon need eye surgery. On top of that, in November I had second much worse stroke that put me in the hospital for most of a week. After months of speech, occupational, and physical therapy, I'm finally able to get around using a quad-cane, although I still have speech and dexterity issues. My wife is scheduled for her eye surgery in a week for one eye, and two weeks for the other one.

Needles to say, our fulltiming days are behind us now, but our doctors are allowing us to spend some time at our favorite NY state parks, as long as we're no more than 2 hours from home. I expect to be able to manage the motorhome by then, and a couple of days age drove it a few miles to a shop for it's annual NY safety inspection.

The bottom line is that we are extremely fortunate that the cottage was there when we needed it!  

[LiveWorkDream]

This is such an interesting discussion! Thanks for starting it. 

We have owned two properties since we started fulltiming in 2007 at ages 40 and 38. One property we purchased as a summer getaway but we were never there so we sold it.

The second is what we have now, a duplex rental that generates a small profit for our someday retirement years still about 7 years away. We are still fulltiming. Since we have a good property management firm overseeing renters, we don’t stress about it. Plus it’s in a place we love and we will probably retire there someday. This property doesn’t keep me up at night the way the other one did. It’s also going to help our retirement savings.

What it comes down to is, if the purchase won’t cause you stress while you travel, and you can afford it, then why not? If it ends up causing more stress than joy, just sell it. Real estate is almost always going to at least break even when you sell if you buy something you can truly afford. 

[Kirk W]

Looking at the responses, I'm a little surprised to see that almost half of those responding do own at least some real property. I remember a very similar poll here back fore 2010 and wish that I had access to it because I believe that the numbers were much different then. The forum was far more active at that time and so the numbers of responders were much larger too. I am pretty sure that fewer than 1/3 of those replying then owned real property. Sadly, I do not believe that our group is very representative of the total Escapee membership or a cross-section of the fulltime community any more. There has been a huge increase in younger, still working members but very few of them contribute to these forums. I suspect that the results of this poll would be significantly different if we could gather a true cross-section of the Escapee membership and/or the total fulltime RV community. It is only a guess, but I suspect that the share who own property would also be quite different. 

Edited April 14 by Kirk W
typo

[k4rs]

When we retired, we told our son that we were running away from home and he was getting his inheritance early.  We transferred title of our (mortgage free) home to our son and hit the road.  We kept that address as our domicile and our son was our mail forwarding agent.  Of course we did most everything online and had very little mail.  For 13 years home was wherever we stopped for the night.

In early 2012 our son told us that he had lost his job.  He ended up selling the house and moving to North Carolina.  We wanted to remain Florida residents so we signed up with a mail forwarding service  and started looking for a new home base.  In late 2013 we found an RV park that has turned out to be just about perfect for us.  It is very similar to an Escapee co-op, but the lots are deeded.  We used our lot as a winter base and continued to travel the rest of the year.  Three years later medical issues caused us to give up the full time lifestyle.  We now travel during the summer months and stay primarily in the eastern half of the country.  Of course we have to visit our son and his family in North Carolina each year.  It really is amazing how fast the grand kids grow up and we would not want to miss a minute.

Safe Travels...

Edited April 16 by k4rs
Dang, another typo...

[fpmtngal]

It’s been interesting to read everyone’s comments and see how all of us started in different places and have gone in different directions as we have aged.

I sold my house because I was done with home ownership.  I came back from a delightful 2 week boondocking trip to several problems with the house, two that made it difficult to solve the first one.  I realized that I had spent more than 6 months in the trailer all 3 years I had had it, so why was I keeping the house?  It was on the market a month later (2019).

  Almost 4 years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery.  I didn’t bounce back right away and wondered if I would ever be able to travel again (I’m solo).  I had gotten a site in a nice park near Phoenix where I went for cancer treatment and decided it would be a good idea to keep the site on an annual basis.  All the time I didn’t feel like traveling and wondering how I was going to cope, I walked the park and looked at the for sale signs on a couple of park models.  However, I just couldn’t talk myself into the idea of buying a park model - it was way too much like home ownership.

I’ve been feeling good the last two years and traveling again.  But now I’m in a big quandary about what my exit plan should be.  Apparently there is now something deep inside of me that blocks the idea of home ownership so I don’t know what it should be.  The CARE Center is high on my possible options, or maybe an apartment somewhere?  Assisted living if I need it?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that the plans I had when I first sold the house didn’t happen the way I had envisioned it, so any exit plan I might have now will have to be modified when the time finally comes.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the fact that I feel well enough now to be able to travel and enjoy the full-time life.  I suspect that my time doing it will be shorter than I had expected/planned on, but maybe not.

[lappir]

Thanks again to all who have participated and for Kirk starting another post and poll for us to share how old we all are. 

I turned 67 in January and stopped working the year before in February. Applied for the SS payments when I was at full retirement age and right now have no debt. I might borrow a small amount of money for the right property, but only if it has a house on it that I could rent out while still living in my Home on wheels on the property any time I wanted to. 

Today I met  a few of the potential neighbors. One very friendly, one friendly and the other that doesn't associate with the neighbors "Because they all come here and then die". His wife was nice thought. 

 

Rod

[Kirk W]

1 hour ago, fpmtngal said:

 What I do know is that the plans I had when I first sold the house didn’t happen the way I had envisioned it, so any exit plan I might have now will have to be modified when the time finally comes.

While I am an advocate of fulltimers having an exit plan, I also believe that said plans should be kept flexible because one never knows what may have changed when the exit time comes. Like you, we sold the house believing that we would never buy another house but when health forced us to change our lifestyle we did buy a small home in an RVing community that was patterned after the Escapee co-ops, but with some significant differences. We then traveled part time out of that base but eventually sold it and moved into a senior citizen community, where we live today. I do believe that there is comfort & security in having an exit plan but that it should be kept loose and reviewed often. 

[sandsys]

I didn't know we had an exit plan other than keeping a bunch of money handy but it turned out Dave had already decided which apartment complex he wanted to move into. We have moved once since then into the place where we plan to live the rest of our lives. Our last house, the first apartment and this apartment are less than 5 miles apart; I guess we like this neighborhood.

Linda

[Mark&Chong]

I guess it’s the exit plan. It’s in the panhandle of Florida and every time we get back we discuss selling mainly to downsize. However it’s the area we want to be in when we stop. We get back once a year in the winter for doctor and dentist visits.

[lappir]

Well the thought of buying property in this location took a big hit today. You can "Park" your RV for unlimited time on certain designated areas, but you cannot reside in said "Home". At least not within the City Limits of Norman, and they have a large area that back in 1956 the annexed to build Lake Thunderbird. Of course that's the side of town I like the most. 

There may be ways around, but now that I've stirred the pot I would for sure be looked into if I happened to request a "Building Permit". 

 

Rod

 

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, lappir said:

not within the City Limits of Norman,

Norman, OK?

[rickeieio]

Rod, another thing to consider is that some states are not very friendly to the idea of having a RV as a residence.  For instance, in Ohio, in order to claim residency, you must live in a permanent structure.  A house trailer skirts this by being raised up and set on piers or a foundation, then anchored to it.  Just one more thing to think about....