Does anyone own a holiday house?

[~Trish~]

I plan on buying one tomorrow after winning Oz lotto tonight. I'm sure there will be issues re maintenance and upkeep, but the servants will deal with them ;-)

Oh and your comment made me giggle , you live in the same dream land I do

[Olive]

id rent it from you!

[~Trish~]

Oooh, I'll sign you up Olive! Heehee! You should see the place we found on the weekend, 5 bedrooms, ocean views, 400 metres from the beach *drooooool*. It would be so easy to rent out, but we can't talk ourselves into being in so much debt just yet!!

[FabFiona]

Where are you looking at, out of interest?

My dream place would be Airey's Inlet or Fairhaven.

[~Trish~]

We're looking at Phillip Island, the house we've fallen in love with is at Smiths Beach. We'd love the kids to all learn to surf and Smiths has great beginner waves. I'd love to be able to crack out my surfboard again!

[nickle730]

We own a holiday house, we bought it about 4 or 5 years ago. It is about 5-6 hours from where we live, which is really too far but the town is very special to me as my family owned a holiday house there when I was growing up. (That house was sold about 20 years ago after about 60 years in the family... long, sad story!) I have wonderful memories of family holidays there and I wanted the same for my own kids.

The pros are pretty straight forward - we have a beautiful place to holiday whenever we want to. We don't have to worry about booking accommodation or the cost of it. The kids are familiar with the house and the town and love going there. We don't have to pack anything as the house is set up with all we need, including clothes. We can take our pets with us.

The cons - apart from the initial cost of purchasing the property, don't forget the cost of furnishing it... everything from beds to saucepans and whitegoods. Ebay is great for furniture if you are happy to buy second hand stuff. (Beds I bought new!) Then there are the ongoing costs; even if you don't spend much time there, you will still pay for the service connections of gas, electricity and water. We pay someone to come and mow the lawns and maintain the gardens as we can't guarantee that we will be there to do it ourselves, and who wants to spend their holidays mowing lawns anyway! Don't forget home and contents insurance, which is quite expensive.

Apart from the costs, there are other cons. We feel guilty if we haven't been to the house in a while as it seems such a waste to have it just sitting there. DH also struggles to book a holiday anywhere else, partly because he loves it there and partly because spending money to go elsewhere seems like a waste to him. Family think that they have every right to use the house whenever they want and at no cost. I am happy for some of my family to use it, but there are a couple of members of my family who have no respect for anyone else's belongings and have stayed and left the damaged and dirty. This has caused some fairly big issues when we have said 'no' next time they have asked to use the house. Although we take our pets, I am not keen on other people taking their un-toilet trained pets - particularly when those toileting accidents are left for a couple of months and ruin the carpet I paid an obscene amount of money for due to the 'remote' location of the house. Yes, we have had some issues with family! We don't rent the house out, it is purely for personal use, so this makes it easier to refuse when friends ask to 'borrow' the house. And every second person asks!

We purchased the house with the intention of never selling it, our plan is to hand the house down to our children and they can hand it down to theirs. Although the house has created some unforeseen issues, particularly with my sister, we have no regrets.

[~Trish~]

Thanks for your reply Nickle! You are so lucky having your own holiday house . The cons you have listed are all on our list too. If we do eventually buy our own place, we plan on being straight-up about not lending the house out to others for free. It will be on an invite only basis. Otherwise there will be LOTS of family/friends politics involved which would certainly ruin the fun. Also, if we plan on renting it out, we'd give preference to those willing to pay the rental rates as we'll desperately need the cash!

We have already factored in gas/electricity/insurance/water, etc. we've estimated there should be around $5000 in outgoings each year (ouch!).

It's a shame you have had some people do damage to your house , it's also very sad that it has caused issues with your family. I'm very glad to hear that even after all of that you don't regret it!