First my situation: My wife and I have been Permanent Travelers for over 4 years now. We're looking to settle down some, but not completely. Ideal is a place we could live 6-8 months a year, then travel the other 4-6 months a year. Many different options we're considering for this purpose, but I just want to focus on one idea here.
The idea: Buy a condo in a ski area (I have a specific resort in mind, we stayed their for a month in ski season a few years ago, and a week in the summer). Rent it out during the 3 months or so of peak ski season, then live there the rest of the year. Depending on how we're feeling, we could list it the rest of the year and just be prepared to leave (maybe just go camping in the summer) if someone actually rents it. What I love about a ski place is that it has a very defined rental season, but is actually really nice almost 365 days a year -- another 2-3 months you can probably ski, plus 3-4 months of good hiking, plus fall foliage.
Everything I read about buying a ski condo is either very wishy-washy ("Don't get bogged down in the numbers, it's a lifestyle decision!") or looking at this purely from an investment point of view (and it sounds like ski condos are one of the worst real estate investmets you can make). I'm not looking at this so much as an investment, as a (hopefully) cheap, and awesome place to live. I don't doubt that a ski condo is a terrible financial purchase for 99% of people who are doing it, but I feel like my unique situation might actually make financial sense.
Help me think through all the costs, here's what I have for costs:
Opportunity Cost of Money: hopefully the property value would appreciate some, but not as much as the stock market, though there is some value in diversification, not sure what % to use here?
Property Tax
HOA fees (and maybe other resort fees depending on the place)
Periodic HOA special assessments etc.
Inside furnishings, repair, periodic remodeling costs: if I'm renting it out quite a bit I'm assuming these would all be considerably higher than a normal condo)
Management fees: I've read widely varying numbers on what this will take of the rental $'s, everything from 20%-50%.
Transaction cost of buying (and probably one day selling) the condo.
Obviously I will do my best to run these numbers for any specific place I'm considering, but I'm really just trying to figure out if this idea is reasonable at all. My logic is that if these places make sense for people who are leaving them empty most of the time, it would have to be a great deal for me, who would happily live there most of the time it's unoccupied. Or maybe it doesn't actually make financial sense for anyone, and it would still be a bad deal no matter what?