Will you eventually buy a home again?

[DBTulsa]

We are in our early 40's and love dreaming of Full-Timing. One question is whether we will keep our home or sell it. For those that sold before going full time, do you plan to eventually buy a home again?

[Afubar]

Absolutely Not! Lawn care, fencing, irrigation, and all that jazz. Nope, not me. Much rather the upkeep on my MH.

[smlranger]

We don't full time but nearly half time. We still own a stick house and the upkeep is a concern as we age and want to travel without concern for the house. Our plan is to keep it a bit longer, sell it and then rent something in a retirement community. We would RV until we get too old to continue and then just continue to live in the retirement community.

[DBTulsa]

@smlranger will you rent near where you own or have you found a new home through your travels?

[CampDaven]

Originally Posted by Afubar

Absolutely Not! Lawn care, fencing, irrigation, and all that jazz. Nope, not me. Much rather the upkeep on my MH.

Yep! The cash that once disappeared through the house is now pure fun.
Buy a house? Naw. When you rent, you can easily MOVE. And no upkeep. Bad neighbors are folks you leave behind!

[cucotx]

Originally Posted by DBTulsa

@smlranger will you rent near where you own or have you found a new home through your travels?

DW and I have discussed the same issue as well. For a while, I thought about renting the house while we went fulltiming. But, obviously, the concern is that renters will not take care of the place as expected.

So, we will probably sell the house and go RVing. I think RVing all over the country is probably the best way to find the eventual place to nest, once we're too old to RV. We're even contemplating buying some empty lots, may be up in Montana, put a pad on it with utilities and park there sometimes in the summer. Then, go south for the winter.

We'll see. Not making any firm decisions yet. First, I need to make it to the current goal of retiring in 5 years.

[DBTulsa]

Originally Posted by cucotx

DW and I have discussed the same issue as well. For a while, I thought about renting the house while we went fulltiming. But, obviously, the concern is that renters will not take care of the place as expected.

So, we will probably sell the house and go RVing. I think RVing all over the country is probably the best way to find the eventual place to nest, once we're too old to RV. We're even contemplating buying some empty lots, may be up in Montana, put a pad on it with utilities and park there sometimes in the summer. Then, go south for the winter.

We'll see. Not making any firm decisions yet. First, I need to make it to the current goal of retiring in 5 years.

We have a little longer than that to go, but we are planners. I like what you said about finding a new place to nest by traveling. I think we will too. Our boys are probably going to end up going to the coasts (one North East and one West) for college so we can really find home to be in a lot of places in the future.

[Mike and Cha]

We do not full time and probably never will due to grandkids/family ect. But we do plan on taking off for months at a time. We are both retired and made good investments in real estate while we were still working, so with good pensions and our current assets we are financially able to do whatever we want.

So far we have done two 1 month trips since we bought our MH, and plan to be out on the road at least 6 months of the year. We will keep our house for now as once we sell it we will never be able to buy in the area we live in again. The houses are at a premium and rarely go on the market. We have two rentals that we plan on selling and in our travels we look for places we would like to live if/when we ever sell the house we have now. As for upkeep, pretty much we can put everything on auto pilot when we are traveling, and our kids can take care of any issues that may come up while we are away.

This way the appreciation is continuing in the houses we own, and it leaves our options open for what we may find in the future. You don't have to be at your house fulltime to make it a worthwhile investment, as it should continue to appreciate(unlike the MH) and it is nice to have something to come home to. If we find another place where we would love to live and could convince our kids to move to, then we will make some changes.

[missourijan]

Nope, we have no plans to own a home again to live in, although we do own 2 rental homes. The home we sold was in NV and our rentals are in AR, there's a very small possibility that we would settle in AR. We want to travel as long as we can, there's so much of the USA to see.

[Firebug5]

Originally Posted by DBTulsa

We are in our early 40's and love dreaming of Full-Timing. One question is whether we will keep our home or sell it. For those that sold before going full time, do you plan to eventually buy a home again?

We retired in our early 50's and sold our large house, got in our 33' Dolphin and decided to follow the saying "How do you know where the best place to live is, until you have been everywhere"? We only made it a year before finding the perfect little house on 5-acres in the mountains of Colorado.

We knew our coach was too small, but thought if we really enjoyed the full-time lifestyle, we would purchase a larger one. Instead, we spent the same amount of money on our new home. We kept the Dolphin and use it between 3 and 6 months per year, keeping it "camping" rather than living in a motor-home.

Our house is easy to winterize since we usually go south after having enough winter, and we have several neighbors that take turns watching each others places when needed.

We have the same dilemma as others who live in a place they could never afford to return to if we decide to sell someday, been here just over 3 years now and property values have jumped back up again. This lifestyle works for us for now, but I do hope someday we will give full-timing another try. We did get rid of a lot of our stuff, and have not started a new pile so far, so the transition back to full-timing would be easier the next time. I admire those who can get rid of all their stuff and just follow the weather!

Soooo, to answer your original question, "For those that sold before going full time, do you plan to eventually buy a home again"? We already did.

Bruce and Judy

[lenkerb]

never will buy another house....or money-pit

[wa8yxm]

Will I ever buy a home again... Depends.

If the door bell rings and the PCH Prize patrol is outside, then when My daughter and son in law find a place they want to plant.. I'll buy them a house.

Else.. No way.

[t55watson]

I am not a FT. I have 3 friends (couples) who have sold the S&B to go FT. ! went FT for 9 years. When the aging process caught them thay sold the RV and stopped travelling. They had seen it all.
Couple 2 Sold the S&B and went FT for ! year. Traveled hard and fast. He loved it she tolerated it. They then bought a affordable house in MI and the RV stays in FL for the winter get away. Couple 3 has been FT for 2 years. 1 in their home town until she could retire and one on the road. Again travelling hard and fast. It now looks like they will spend a lot more time in their hometown as she is really tied to family and aches when away. I don't know if a S&B is in their future but the RV will be in the hometown for 6 months or more every year.
Very few people FT until they die. Have a plan.

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by DBTulsa

We are in our early 40's and love dreaming of Full-Timing.

My wife and I were about your age when we started to talk about full-timing after retirement. Now it is going to be a reality in two years after she retires. You didn't mention when you would like to start, so I am assuming that it will be after retirement, although there are families who do full-time with their children aboard out there.

Everyone's financial and family dynamic situation is different. In general, my advice is to save for retirement as aggressively as you can without sacrificing time with your family for vacations and outings. Your kids are the most important people in your life.

Just to give you an idea of one couples' plan as an example, here is where we're at:

I retired at he age of 55 (now 59) with a secure pension and substantial savings. My wife, 58, will retire in two years with a lesser secured pension.

We will be selling our two-story home, vacation home at the Colorado River, pontoon boat, Mustang, and decades of "stuff" accumulated, most of which is the usual meaningless crap. Family memorabilia will be stored in a small climate-controlled storage unit.

Other than my 87-year-old mother-in-law who lives in a board and care home, we have no family in California that will tie us down here.

Then it's off to wherever and whenever we feel like it in our 43' Newmar Ventana. Our new state domicile will be South Dakota.

Originally Posted by t55watson

When the aging process caught them they sold the RV and stopped travelling. Very few people FT until they die. Have a plan.

NEVER SAY NEVER. If we like being on the road full-time and stay there until we die of old age like others will comment, fine. However, being a realist, we have a financial plan in place to purchase a home when we decide to settle someday.

The home will be a reasonably priced one-story, three bedroom, two-bath, with an RV garage. This is so we can keep our motorhome and still travel in part-time mode. More than likely it will be in Lake Havasu City so we can have a pool, continue boating, and live in an area with many year-round activities.

Always have a plan, Don and Denise, like t55watson said. You do not know what the future will bring. One unthinkable catastrophe occurred for us and changed our lives forever. It can happen to anyone at anytime.

As far as home landscape maintenance, like Afubar says, I hate it too. I dream of having a home like the one pictured below in Lake Havasu City if/whenever it comes to that point.

No yard work:

Lake Havasu City:

How we spend our summers:

.