Buying a lake house

[veedubtek]

Ok. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want a place on the lake. But I'm not rich. That makes things tricky. My lake *seems* to be very pricey, but maybe that's most lakes. Ok, it's probably most lakes. Mine is very small, but quiet and comfortable and warm. And close. Key factor there being close. I could commute from the lake. I work some saturday mornings, and my wife works some weekends as well. This would never be an issue on Belews lake. Anywhere else, it would make us question going out for a weekend.

Which brings a few different options. The marina there has a good bit of property set aside for park models. (2br 18x35 trailers or whatever). They are all privately owned, but the land is rented. I can buy one of these for somewhere between $80,000-$200,000. Then, the lot rent + slip annual fee is about $3400. I highly doubt a conventional mortgage could even apply to something like this (I'm guessing, I have no idea). Assuming it can, I figure I'm looking at $800/month or so + almost $300 month for the land. So, $1100/month for a weekend abode on the water. $1100/month for a trailer. Is this normal??? I can swing it with truck and boat payment gone. I'm still having trouble stomaching it though. It'd be alot easier sitting on the deck admiring the lake and my boat on a slip I'm sure though.

Option 2 - sell my house and buy a real house out there. There's a beautiful piece of land on a really quiet portion of lake available. 2 acres for $200K asking price. The wife is convinced she wants a smaller house, I kinda do as well (we've got 2700sq/ft now). So, I could build fairly cheaply I would think, and actually build a badass garage to boot. Be in it all under 400K, and no clue what that mortgage payment would look like. Biggest hurdle there is my house is in a proposed beltway zone. When I bought it 5 years ago, it was HELL trying to find someone to finance it because it's slated for destruction at some point. This project has been going on for 20 years with no end in sight. The house is only 9 years old. So, I had to live and work here 6 months before I could use my VA loan to purchase, and they were the only ones that would do it. I imagine that would make life selling this house a serious headache. Although, I bought it for $70K under tax value so I could net some nice profit if it did sell.

So, please tell me, oh lucky owners of lake houses. Bestow upon me your wisdom and experiences and guide me towards a summer of paradise. Or, steer me away from hell. Particularly you, @justason , as you are probably the closest one to me with a lake house. Call me if it's easier.

 

[Scottintexas]

I don't own lake property but would love to one day. If it's possible to commute from the lake I would say the best plan would be to buy your own land and build. I think buying a park model would be a short term or only half measure and still leave you wanting to upgrade later.

 

[Bruce]

I would go with option 2 if you can sell your current home. Not sure you can make a profit on it. Have the conditions that caused the previous owner to sell cheap changed?

 

[veedubtek]

Previous owner went bankrupt. It was a short sale. The value is definitely back up, but the beltway is still supposed to come through here one day, and I imagine that's gonna make financing hard as it was for me. I do have a realtor looking into it for me.

 

[veedubtek]

I should also add - I still have every intention of moving to Florida one day, which kinda makes me lean towards the park model option. But that is realistically still at least 5--10 years out.

 

[jawsf16]

If I could have my main home be on the lake, that would by far be my choice. Even more so if it includes a nice piece of land that you could do more with, such as garages, workshops, docks, etc. In North Texas lake lots don't exist close to Love Field where I work. Well they do, but they are in undesirable school areas or they are way old and way overpriced. We decided to get a condo right near our desired lake. It is nice having your own stuff and somewhere to sleep when you are there, plus cost was very reasonable. The negative is I don''t have land or a dock to store the boat. You will find that you will still spend lots of time on the water so the "vacation" style park model would be nice too. Remember that you will pay that "lease land" fee in some form wherever you end up. Costs will get you, property tax, leased land, HOA, insurance, etc. We looked at Dockominiums too and the realtor we talked with had a guy who specialized in financing these even though you don't own the land, so ask around and I bet someone has a guy for those park models and financing I think you have a tough choice, but really no choice until you determine you can sell your current home. Its good to have these kinds of problems though!

 

[Speedling]

We have looked at it all ourselves but decided it is much cheaper to stay at a cottage for $110 a night.
We hope when we retire to sell the house we are in, get a cottage near lake cumberland and a condo up here near the lake. This way we can be near family or down by the nice lake cumberland area and switch back and forth. Of course, this means both would be cheaper places and would be post-kids Era for us.

 

[rkluck]

I went down a similar path a few years back. We had been looking he for lake homes and the original idea was to buy one we came commute from and sell the one we are in. Sounds like the lake you are looking at is operated by the Army corps. The closest lake for us was Allatoona. We looked for years and whenever we saw a house we liked it was so expensive that wouldn't work for us. The houses seems like they were right on top of each other as well. We also looked at the trailer thing and just didn't like that option. Also you will have to put a lot down (maybe most or all) since most mortgage companies don't like those properties and the interest will be higher. This worried me about resale later as well. We knew we would have a long commute but thought it would be worth it. The dock fees etc. were very high. We had our boat at a marina on the lake so we had a lot of knowledge about the lake. It was important to us to not have a lot where the dock that would go dry every winter. We never found what would work for us (that we could afford).

We decided to try another option and looked a lakes further out. We found a great house on lake Hartwell that had everything we wanted for about 1/3 price. The dock fees are only $500 for 5 years and that included the path, water and electricity at the dock. We kept the house we have in town for the week and use the lake house for weekends, etc. The travel time is about 1 hour 40 minutes.

Some thoughts to consider as well that we went through. The fact is we don't know where we will retire and in 10 years may have a complete change in what we want. We have thought about moving to the coast the most (looked at many places around Savannah). We have thought we could just settle on a base location then rent a place for a month at different locations rather than have several homes. Also, I asked my wife if I were to die would she want to stay at this place etc. without me. An example is that she would not want to stay at the lake house and get old without me. Of course she can sell it but I am trying to make this the best choice for us and not have a burden on her later.

We have pretty much settled on buying what we want for now and then knowing later we may well sell and do something different when we are retired. We are now buying (having built) a house that will be great for us in town. We could retire there (she loves it and the location) or as mentioned about we may sell it 10 years from now. We have some rental homes and hate them so we will defiantly sell the house we have now as soon as we move into the new one. FYI - We bought our current one as a foreclosure as well (about 8 years ago) and took three months to fix it up before moving into and have continued to do work to it. I hate leaving this house because it is almost paid off!

I hope this helps and I know there are some many things to consider.

 

[justason]

This is really interesting @veedubtek . So some day the expectation is that the state will purchase the property from you in support of the freeway ? If your debt on it is low vs value, it sounds like you may see a nice monthly profit renting it out and waiting for the state to buy you out.

I have to think the audience for buyers may be limited with a stipulation like that hanging overhead ?

When we bought our lake place as a second home it hurt bad in the purse, (but was cheaper than a divorce, well maybe not......bwoop O'boy)...over time thru consolidations and adaptation everything fell into place........we are about to put our primary house for sale and are probably 2 years away from living at the lake full time.

Our secret to success was simple uber-conservancy young.. That included owning rentals that not only turned a profit, but the property increased in value nicely too........that, a good work ethic, playing well with others, honesty, looking both ways, sharing.......blah blah blah..........

The math doesn't lie when it comes to a big move like this. it's evaluating the risks and ignoring the emotions that's the challenge. We love the lake side bunker.....A big reason in loving it is it's just an hour away...(I think u commented on this elsewhere)...we'll adopt a big commute once we hit there full time...we'll see how that goes then.....

 

[robert843]

I would avoid option 1. Not owning the land if that company ever decides to sell the land to another developer who wants to do something else with it not only would you lose your lake front abode you would also be stuck owing a bunch a money on a park model that you probably paid too much for because it was close to a lake. I would build at least then if done correctly you would be building a true equity position that you control not another land owner. I'm fighting the same battle right now. I have a great lake house on Lake Murray in Columbia and a place at the beach down in Myrtle Beach. My company is moving me back to the coast and I'm torn on what to do with the Lake House as I love it but as you mentioned it is a pricey second home. Until now both homes have been being used as I spend Monday thru Thursday for work at the lake house and spend most Friday thru Sundays at the beach but my new work schedule will only have me at the lake house 2-3 days a month. I'm having a tough time swallowing that pill of paying for the lake house for that few days of use. If lived inland and would use it every weekend it might make sense but living full time at the coast I know there will be few weekends I spend up there as I actually prefer boating my local coastal area compared to the lake. Keep shopping though you will know when you find that deal that's for you. Or do like my developer did and buy that two acres and stack as many house as you can in there and let it all pay for itself . That's my only dislike about my lake house is how tight they stacking the homes in since the land is valuable.