Author Topic: Who has said goodbye to a vacation house to pursue FIRE?  (Read 2216 times)

kapnfriday

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Who has said goodbye to a vacation house to pursue FIRE?
« on: September 02, 2016, 11:03:49 AM »
Hi all,

I discovered MMM in the last month and have been devouring everything on the site and on many other similar sites.  I'm 46 and my wife is 44.  She can retire in 10 years with 30 years of service to the state of NC.  She'll receive a pension that'll pay her about $55k/year gross.  Thinking about her retiring in 10 years got me thinking, "hey, I want to retire in 10 years too - maybe sooner."  We're a bit older than many pursuing FIRE so we won't have as many years in retirement, but at our age we're not starting from scratch.  We have about $360k in retirement accounts (not including wife's pension), have no debt other than 2 mortgages, have one child (boy 11), and live close to both of our jobs - less than 5 miles for both of us. 

Looking at the numbers I know we can do this.  The thing standing in our way is our vacation cabin in the mountains. I'm not looking for input on whether or not selling the cabin is the right thing to do to get to FIRE - that's obvious to me. Selling would drastically reduce our expenses and drastically increase our savings rate. What I'm interested in is from those who've been through something similar, what was your experience like?  How did it feel to let go of a vacation home?  Did you have trouble convincing your spouse/SO?  If you have kids how did they deal with the change?  Our son was 2 when we bought the property, so it's always been part of his experience.  Did you have feelings of regret?  If so how did you deal with that?

If anyone has any ideas on how to minimize capital gains taxes I'm all ears on that too.  My thought is to use the sale proceeds to get into rental property investing - something I've always wanted to try - but I'm not quite sure how the timing of the sale and reinvestment needs to work in to not get hit with CGT.  Are there other investment options I should consider?

Thanks to all for your feedback.  This has been weighing heavily on me.  I think it will help to hear from those who have been through a similar experience.

imustachemystash

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Re: Who has said goodbye to a vacation house to pursue FIRE?
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2016, 12:03:18 PM »
I have a vacation home in the mountains.  It is located 5 miles from the entrance to a national park so it gets lots of visitors passing through.  I turned the cabin over to a property management company and they rent it out nightly.  I block out a weekend each month to use it and 2 weeks in the summer.  The cabin pays for itself (plus a little extra) this way.  Is this something you might consider?

catccc

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Re: Who has said goodbye to a vacation house to pursue FIRE?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2016, 12:38:31 PM »
I say if turning it into an income stream is a possibility, explore that option, for sure.  A lot of people include rental properties as part of their ER strategy.  Airbnb or VRBO might be good places to start.

kapnfriday

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    • The Graying Saver
Re: Who has said goodbye to a vacation house to pursue FIRE?
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2016, 10:19:14 AM »
Thanks for the feedback.  I'm looking into both the Airbnb and property management company options.  Looking at nearby properties on Airbnb I came across a cabin I recognized as we can see it from our place.  I contacted the owner and we'll try to get together this fall to talk about her experience renting through Airbnb.