Vacation Home Bargains?

Some real estate experts believe now is a good time to buy a vacation home because second home prices have declined.  I wrote about finding deals in affordable vacation homes two years ago. More recently, CNN/Money published a slide show of homes currently for sale that (according to CNN) are located in vacation destinations. Read more

Is Now a Good Time to Buy a Retirement Home?

With real estate values depressed, some boomers may be thinking that this is a good time to buy a retirement home. I think there is a lot of logic to that plan, if executed correctly. Read more

The Low Stress Vacation Home

The New York Times recently published an article that attempts to explore the harsh realities of owning a vacation home. I agree with many of the author’s views. I wanted to comment further because we are now experienced owners of a pre-retirement vacation home. If you have considered purchasing property to use for vacation or weekend living, perhaps you might learn something helpful from this post and/or from the article. Read more

Re-Thinking the Dream of a Beach Front Retirement

Many baby boomers have grown up yearning for beach front property. Owning a house or condo near the ocean for retirement is a dream that lots of us have shared. Sadly, the Gulf oil disaster has added another reason to the list of reasons why retiring on the beach may not be such a good idea. Read more

Lake House Design Considerations

Buying or building a lake house for full or part-time living presents unique home design considerations.  Sometimes you do not realize what those design differences are until after the fact. My wife and I are at our lake house this weekend. As we spend more time here by ourselves, we contemplate the years ahead as we age. Our hope and plan is that this lake house will be a part-time home in retirement. We also want our family members to be able to enjoy using it as a vacation home. Thus, we have been thinking about its present design and how we might improve it for the long term. These are some of the design considerations that we have discussed. Read more

Using a Vacation Home for a Vacation

A new word added to our recession vocabulary is “staycation” which translates to “taking a vacation at home.” The word may be new but the concept isn’t. Vacation home owners have been taking staycations for years. Isn’t that the purposes of owning a second home? There is nothing disappointing or less fun about a vacation home staycation if done right. Read more

Finding Deals in Affordable Vacation Homes

Now is a great time to be buying an inexpensive vacation home. They are more affordable than ever and money is cheap. If you can use a pre-retirement vacation home as place to ultimately downsize, it can make a lot of sense to buy it and enjoy it now. That’s what we have done. Read more

Lake House Spring Maintenance

Some of you who are interested in a lake house for a vacation home or for retirement might be wondering what it’s like to maintain a home on a lake. As nice as it is to live on the water, there are maintenance and upkeep issues that must be considered. I have been looking at some of these the past two weekends so I thought I would share them with readers. Read more

Lake Property Vacation Homes in Kentucky

When it comes to owning lake front property for retirement or as a vacation home, Kentucky is a hidden gem.  I say this based on our personal experience.  We have owned our lake house in Kentucky for six years and are very happy with the decision that we made.  I thought I would write a little more about it, thinking that it might help other baby boomers who are considering buying a lakefront home. Read more

Lake House Living in Winter

We use our lake house as a week-end retreat all year long.  It is close enough (90 minutes) that we just want to be there as often as possible, no matter what the weather.  We enjoy our pre-retirement vacation home that much. Read more

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