Strategies for buying the perfect vacation home
- Decision-making strategies: 6 questions to ask yourself
- 1. Can I afford?
- 2. Should I buy it with my friend, my brother, another family?
- 3. How will I use the home?
- 4. Where should my vacation home be?
- 5. What kind of house will it be?
- 6. What are the tax implications of a vacation home?
- The last line
Everyone knows the standard summer safety tips: swim only when a lifeguard is present, apply sunscreen liberally, drink plenty of fluids. But there's one item your financial advisor would probably like to add to that list: Beware the sudden, seemingly unstoppable urge to buy a second home in the place where you just spent two idyllic weeks on vacation. As one financial website puts it, summer is "a time to relax, kick back and make dumb financial decisions. "Buying a home may not be such a stupid decision, but it has to be one made with the head and not the heart – and only after consulting with financial, legal and real estate experts.
If you decide to buy a vacation home, you'll be part of an emerging trend that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has been tracking since 2003. The 2015 NAR survey reports that vacation home buying rose to a record high in 2014, with an estimated 1. 13 million vacation home sales. The typical buyer had a median household income of $94, 380 and purchased a property with a median distance of 200 miles from their primary residence. Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, calls it "amazing growth" that nearly doubled the total number of vacation home sales over the past two years.