Buying a holiday home abroad

FlyMeSomewhere79

I've about 20 years to figure out my retirement options even if it's just spending most of British winter in warmer climes. My partner and I do like travelling and exploring so maybe even a bit of van life if I can persuade him 😊

I suppose the other thing to think about with a holiday home is if it's stood alone whilst your not there, what happens if god forbid there's a water leak or bad weather damages it etc - other holiday home owners must have somebody keep an eye on they'd places - in fact that could be a retirement business plan for me 😁

MobileSaver

HobgoblinBT said:

The cost of a holiday home with all the pluses and minuses would as an alternative buy a lot of holidays without being restricted to one place to visit.

This was the conclusion I came to every time I've considered buying a holiday home abroad; sounds idyllic at first thoughts but doesn't make sense on most practical considerations.

If there was a particular place abroad that you'd already fallen in love with then that might change things but otherwise you are pretty much restricting yourself to holidaying in the exact same place for ever more. 

Couple that with repairs, maintenance and security issues and I decided it would no longer be a genuine "holiday" place.

As you say, instead of spending £125,000 on one place you could have some amazing holidays in 101 different parts of the world and still have plenty of money left over.

silvercar

MobileSaver said:

HobgoblinBT said:

The cost of a holiday home with all the pluses and minuses would as an alternative buy a lot of holidays without being restricted to one place to visit.

This was the conclusion I came to every time I've considered buying a holiday home abroad; sounds idyllic at first thoughts but doesn't make sense on most practical considerations.

If there was a particular place abroad that you'd already fallen in love with then that might change things but otherwise you are pretty much restricting yourself to holidaying in the exact same place for ever more. 

Couple that with repairs, maintenance and security issues and I decided it would no longer be a genuine "holiday" place.

As you say, instead of spending £125,000 on one place you could have some amazing holidays in 101 different parts of the world and still have plenty of money left over.

It’s a balance.find a place you love and take extra breaks in addition to your main holiday. This is the age of cheap flights, with no accommodation costs you can squeeze in extra holidays. Find a good agent and rent out the place when you are not using it to cover costs.

steve866

There are probably better ways to invest, but it could be a great lifestyle choice. There are some areas in Portugal and Spain where prices are increasing since covid due to remote working etc

MobileSaver

silvercar said:

MobileSaver said:

HobgoblinBT said:

The cost of a holiday home with all the pluses and minuses would as an alternative buy a lot of holidays without being restricted to one place to visit.

This was the conclusion I came to every time I've considered buying a holiday home abroad; sounds idyllic at first thoughts but doesn't make sense on most practical considerations.

If there was a particular place abroad that you'd already fallen in love with then that might change things but otherwise you are pretty much restricting yourself to holidaying in the exact same place for ever more. 

Couple that with repairs, maintenance and security issues and I decided it would no longer be a genuine "holiday" place.

As you say, instead of spending £125,000 on one place you could have some amazing holidays in 101 different parts of the world and still have plenty of money left over.

It’s a balance.find a place you love and take extra breaks in addition to your main holiday. This is the age of cheap flights, with no accommodation costs you can squeeze in extra holidays.

I thought the same initially but then realised there are four components to a holiday - flights, accommodation, food and entertainment. I guess it depends on the sort of holidays you prefer but for us eating out is a big part of the holiday and we'll easily spend more per day on food and drink than we will on accommodation.

So, yes, relatively cheap flights are often available and accommodation costs would nominally be less (but obviously not zero given you've spent £125k + ongoing costs) but food, drink and entertainment costs would be pretty much the same so in the round it's nowhere near as cheap a holiday as you may have first thought.

Of course if you're the sort of person who loves cooking at home then grilling on a BBQ in a Portuguese villa may well be your idea of heaven and in that case it's a more attractive option financially.

silvercar said:

Find a good agent and rent out the place when you are not using it to cover costs.

Ultimately we came to the realisation that accommodation costs are not actually as big a part of holidaying as we first thought. Tying ourselves to just one place for limited financial benefits didn't make sense for the sort of holiday we like.

Renting it out when not using it may work well for some but we're both retired and starting a new rental business isn't something we'd want to be bothered with. Again it sounds great in theory (and I'm sure many do it successfully) but we wouldn't want the risks and headaches of renting a holiday property in the UK (with or without an agent) let alone in a foreign country...

eddddy

silvercar said:

 Find a good agent and rent out the place when you are not using it to cover costs.

FWIW, I know a few people who've tried that in various European counties, and all of them have regretted it. But maybe they were just unlucky.

Maybe it's worth reading all the posts on this board (and some other boards like Insurance, Energy, Phones, Consumer Rights) about the problems that can arise with owning a property and doing holiday lets in this country - and then consider the possibility of them happening in another country, with a different language, different laws, different customs, etc.


Example problems people have mentioned to me, include

• The agent wasn't telling the owner about every holiday booking - so the agent was keeping the rent themselves

• The agent said there was a major leak in the bathroom and the best solution was to refit the bathroom. The owner later found that the problem was a loose connection on the sink waste - which took 2 minutes to fix.

• The agent applied for change of use for the property from "Residential" to "Commercial" - so that their 'associate' could open a night club next door. (The 'associate' wouldn't have got consent, if it was next to a residential property.) The noise meant the property was almost unlettable.

• The property owners had a general meeting and agreed that they should all pay less service charge - except for the property owned by the foreigner who wasn't at the meeting - who would have to pay more.

AlexMac

Not an exact parallel but having owned two holiday homes, one in Puglia in Italy, one on the Kent coast in the UK, I’m with Mobile Saver, above, in questioning whether owning is a great idea or not?

We ended up renting out the UK one after a couple of years to save cash, and flogging the Italian one after five years as flight prices, local car hire and restaurant costs escalated. OK, we got a lot of pleasure out of both, and occasionally enjoyed the 3,000 mile round car trip as an alternative to fly-drive to southern Italy, but it wasn’t really a cheap hol any longer. And although costs of local tax and utilities in Italy were low, I got a bit fed up having to lime-wash the internal arched ceilings and re-point “La cimenta “ of the 400-year old stone flagged roof!

And although I’ve made (sometimes lots of) money on every one of our 8 London properties over the past 50 years, as prices rocketed,  we only got out even on the Kent coast cos of the lettings income and the fact I did most of its refurb myself. And we made a euro loss on the Itie place but made a lot cos the euro had risen against the pound!

Herzlos

I think unless you really like the area and have some connection to it, it's going to be very expensive for a few weeks a year.  £125k at a pretty poor 2% APR savings account would give you £2500/year which should get you a decent holiday somewhere of your choice in Europe for 2 weeks. And you still have the £125k available if you need it.

You should be able to get a much higher return if putting in that kind of money.

I don't know anyone who isn't retired that spends anything like as much time in their holiday homes as they think they will, unless it's been a shared home or a bit more local. A friend of mine's parents bought a caravan on the coast about an hour from them and it gets a lot of use because they can leave work at 5pm on a Friday and be in the caravan for dinner, stay the weekend and then drive to work on Monday morning. You couldn't do anything particularly spontaneous to Portugal.

With a kid about to start school, you're going to find availability much reduced and a whole host of other things to spend on soon.

You also said your pension wasn't sorted yet; I'd maybe look at using some of the money to top your pension up as the earlier you put money into it the better. Not all of it though, as you said you want to enjoy life too.

Murphybear

With a 4 year old you might be better off having holidays closer to home until they they are a bit older.  Do you live in Cornwall?  I see you are looking to fly from Newquay.  There are few places as magical as Cornwall for little ones.  Plus you have Devon, Dorset, Somerset etc  doorstep.  Not to mention the Isles of Scilly.

I had friends who had a ski lodge in the French Alps.  They used to drive down there but it took for ever.   They didn’t want to lend the lodge to people so it was a bit of a millstone.  They sold it in in the end and bought a beautiful chalet in South Devon.  They got a lot of use as they were living in mid Devon

Slinky

What are the costs of school holiday time flights from Newquay? I can't imagine that they are cheap.

Also, where else could you reasonably fly from if the route got pulled fron Newquay? How long will it take you to get to that airport instead?