Own a RV space in a resort? Why? Should I?

[hohenwald48]

I've looked at those "For Sale" RV sites at several locations in Michigan and in Florida. The problem I see is that by the time you add up the HOA, insurance, utility costs, property taxes, special assessments, loss of income on the purchase price and other fees you usually end up in a situation where you need to spend about 150 nights at the current same park rental rate just to break even.

As long as that's the case I'll just rent and not be in a long term commitment and tied to a single location with capital tied up in what is usually a slow to turn over asset. I've never really had a problem with finding 30 day or so rentals in an area I like. Sometimes I don't get 1st choice and don't get the best site in the park but we make do.

I would never consider an ownership site for a permanent residence for a lot of the reasons others have indicated. I just don't see me and the missus at 90 years old climbing in and out of a 30 year old RV on a daily basis. I'll keep my S&B for old age.

[Dmrad]

Everyone is different. You have to decide what is best for you.


Some people like to stay in one place all the time. We are not one of those people! LOL We retired last year, sold the house and furnishings and hit the road full time. Snow birding in Florida is the longest we've stayed in any one state. Spent one month in Miami (never again!!! LOL), 6 weeks in the Keys, 5 weeks so far in Ft. Myers and soon we'll start heading north out of Florida on our way to the Pacific northwest. We're getting ansy to get on the road. But our first winter in our lives without snow has been pretty dang good!!!!

[CARLnJANIS]

There are 'Full-timers', 'Summer-timers', 'Some-timers', and 'No-timers'.

There are 'Gypsies', 'Settlers', and the hybrid, 'Gypsy-Settlers'.

Right now we are 'No-timers'-'Settlers'. The DW works long and hard hours which makes taking long trips difficult and weekend trips impossible. We take one two-week trip a year and maybe one other one-week trip during the Christmas holiday. Both are there and back trips with overnight travel stops during the two-week trip.

The end of this year the DW retires. We will become 'Summer-timer' 'Gypsy-Settlers'. We are keeping our S&B and traveling during the summer. We have a RV space in Colorado that we will be using as a staging area to travel up and down the Rockies. We will travel east in early Spring before turning west when the RV resort season starts in May. And travel somewhere else in the Fall.

That is the extent of my planning.

Nowhere to be and in no hurry to get there.

[reubenray]

When we bought our RV resort lot we had already planned on building a small casita/coachhouse right beside our motorhome. The house is 736 SF which includes me a small shop on the end. This setup gives us the freedom to come and go as we please plus take a trip as long as we want too without worrying about the day to day issues of owning a home. The HOA fees covers the wifi, yard maintenance, water and sewer. Being in the RV'rs family we have made a lot of friends that will look after our home/lot while on trips which includes watering of our plants, checking our mail, etc.

A big plus is we have full use of the clubhouse which includes the kitchen, fitness center, Tik Bar, pickleball courts and of course the pool and hottub. We don't take trips normally in the summer where we can enjoy the pool more.

One of the main reason we did this was to downsize and to have a permanent address. It is just the two of us and we needed a setup that either one of us could maintain if something happened to the other one. The beaches of the Gulf coast is about 30 minutes away. Most of the current owner's are retired, but there are more that are in their 50's that still have to work. There are even a lot of snowbirds that have made lifelong friends with.

[JMonroe]

There really isn't any "one size fits all" answer to the question of whether or not it makes sense for you to own an RV lot.

We own in a nice central Florida park. This is our 6th winter season here and we've made a lot of good friends in the neighborhood and there is a lot we like to do in the area. HOA fees and taxes run about $300 per month. High season rates for the sites run $600 to $1000, some inclusive of utilities and some not. You can do the math.

We are currently fulltime. Peggy does not drive the coach, but there is a plan behind everything. While I have no doubt friends would offer to drive the coach anywhere Peggy would want or need it should something happen to me, FMCA also offers a service to return the coach to our site from where ever we might be at the time an emergency arises. She could then live in it as long as she needs to until she were to come up with a long term plan. While we don't own the rig outright (made no sense for us to pay cash given the difference between interest rates and investment income) we have more than enough equity in it that we will never be "upside down". Whether she sold it on her own or put it on consignment with one of the many large local dealers, it would not have to be a fire sale, and there would be principle left after the loan was satisfied. There are also ample assets available in our IRA to cover the cost of whatever she may want to do after that, especially as her expectations have always been far more modest than mine.

Our Florida lot is also our legal domicile, vehicle registration costs are minimal compared to most states and of course there is no income tax. Insurance costs are probable about 25% higher here than what we had been paying in either Wisconsin or South Dakota, however.

The near term plan is to travel half the year, park it here over the winter. Many of our Florida friends are playing RV lot rental roulette each season as the demand for space is starting to outstrip the supply with the baby boomer retirement wave. We know where we'll be over the winter, enjoying friends and the many recreational opportunities here, as we plan the next years travels.

As the health or interest in travel weakens we'll sell what we have now and move into a more conventional stick and brick. In the meantime, we're not going to nail ourselves to the care and maintenance of a stick and brick because of what may come in the future at the expense of what we'd worked towards for decades.

If you ever find yourself on the site next to us, whether you own it or rent it, come over and introduce yourself and we'll work to fix the rest of the worlds problems together.

[CJ7ole]

We have done the 8,000 mile out west trip and so that itch has been scratched. We are content to spend November, March and April in our favorite park on a canal to the intracoastal in Cortez FL. Nine years now. But it is an upgraded all-brick-pavers condo style RV park and is quite expensive. Location has a lot to do with it. We bought a used 19' center console boat we can dock 20 feet behind our rig and be out in the gulf in a half hour, weather permitting. We don't have $160k lying around to invest, so we would have to get a mortgage to buy, and for us, the numbers don't work out, we might get 3% on our investment and hope property values held when it came time to sell. So we rent.

[IC2]

Had a very nice site on Florida's West Coast that was absolutely perfect at the time (late 1980s) and put a nice Royal's International TT on it but left it so it could be pulled off to storage and I could then rent it when we weren't using it. I also allowed my kids to use it in the '90s when they were in their early to mid 20s. Along came the newbie OFs and changed the book of rules (HOA?) to a 55+ park and no unaccompanied kids. I fought that as my being grandfathered and won - but life got very interesting with nit picking plus that TT got pretty battered by the weather and I sold it. Along came a bunch more of new very tight rules and a bunch of fees that became a burden. One of the renters made me a decent offer and they ended up owning that problem CG site.

What I'm trying to point out is that that piece of paper you sign today may have hidden or unattached at signing time strings and what works today might be superceded tomorrow by 'The Committee'.

If that's the way you want to go, make sure your initial contract is solid and you are grandfathered or your life might not be as fun as hoped

[rewillia]

We've never been ones to sit still for very long and will continue to maintain a home-base (domicile) in addition to traveling on our coach from what on average is becoming 7-8 months per year. Today that comes in the form of a down-sized into small, S&B 2-BR Town Home which is managed under and HOA responsible for all exterior maintenance and upkeep making our coach traveling life much more convenient not having to worry about such. As to owning a private lot within a developed RV Community or Resort, I suppose a lot has to do with the frequency of return, such as being located in a popular vacationing destination but I have a tendency to wonder how well those may appreciate over time in terms of investment not to mention the possibility of growing tired of the desire to continue to return to the same location.