I don't understand cabin ownership

[Scandium]

My parents/grandparents had multiple cabins (a big thing in Scandianvia). And much of my childhood was spent there. I'm wondering now if I should provide something similar to my children here in the US. Of course there are limitless rental options in all kids of exciting places, but wouldn't it be cool to own a cabin..? But no matter how I look at it I can't make it make sense financially! To a shocking degree actually.

It's expensive here on the east coast, so anything remotely livable would be at least $10,000 per year in interest, taxes, insurance etc. Interest will of course go down, but that is probably conservative regarding maintenance and upkeep, so lets go with that. And it's also ignoring opportunity cost of the $30-40k down payment.

That $10k/year is at least 10 long-weekend rentals pretty much anywhere around here. Or several week long ones. Even a big shore house in peak season is "only" ~$3k/week, so three of those.. Most of those rentals are probably nice than anything we could afford to buy too! This is probably more vacation that I'd care to spend in one place. So we'd struggle to spend as much on rentals as cabin ownership would cost for a single year! How does this make any kind of sense?

Every now and then I think it would be cool to be a "cabin owner", like my parents, uncles, several friends on facebook etc etc. They are all doing it.. But then I go through this thought process and see virtually no upside. Why would I do this rather than rent cool new places forever? Or even same place forever for that matter. Wondering what I'm missing..

(This is also ignoring the fact that another house to maintain is really not something I'd like in my life right now, if ever..)

[Dicey]

My parents/grandparents had multiple cabins (a big thing in Scandianvia). And much of my childhood was spent there. I'm wondering now if I should provide something similar to my children here in the US. Of course there are limitless rental options in all kids of exciting places, but wouldn't it be cool to own RENT a cabin..? But no matter how I look at it I can't make it make sense financially! To a shocking degree actually.

It's expensive here on the east coast, so anything remotely livable would be at least $10,000 per year in interest, taxes, insurance etc. Interest will of course go down, but that is probably conservative regarding maintenance and upkeep, so lets go with that. And it's also ignoring opportunity cost of the $30-40k down payment.

That $10k/year is at least 10 long-weekend rentals pretty much anywhere around here. Or several week long ones. Even a big shore house in peak season is "only" ~$3k/week, so three of those.. Most of those rentals are probably nice than anything we could afford to buy too! This is probably more vacation that I'd care to spend in one place. So we'd struggle to spend as much on rentals as cabin ownership would cost for a single year! How does this make any kind of sense?

Every now and then I think it would be cool to be a "cabin owner", like my parents, uncles, several friends on facebook etc etc. But then I go through this thought process and see virtually no upside. Why would I do this rather than rent cool new places forever? Or even same place forever for that matter. Wondering what I'm missing..

(This is also ignoring the fact that another house to maintain is really not something I'd like in my life right now, if ever..)

FTFY. All done. Can we go outside and play now?

[Xlar]

My parents/grandparents had multiple cabins (a big thing in Scandianvia). And much of my childhood was spent there. I'm wondering now if I should provide something similar to my children here in the US. Of course there are limitless rental options in all kids of exciting places, but wouldn't it be cool to own RENT a cabin..? But no matter how I look at it I can't make it make sense financially! To a shocking degree actually.

It's expensive here on the east coast, so anything remotely livable would be at least $10,000 per year in interest, taxes, insurance etc. Interest will of course go down, but that is probably conservative regarding maintenance and upkeep, so lets go with that. And it's also ignoring opportunity cost of the $30-40k down payment.

That $10k/year is at least 10 long-weekend rentals pretty much anywhere around here. Or several week long ones. Even a big shore house in peak season is "only" ~$3k/week, so three of those.. Most of those rentals are probably nice than anything we could afford to buy too! This is probably more vacation that I'd care to spend in one place. So we'd struggle to spend as much on rentals as cabin ownership would cost for a single year! How does this make any kind of sense?

Every now and then I think it would be cool to be a "cabin owner", like my parents, uncles, several friends on facebook etc etc. But then I go through this thought process and see virtually no upside. Why would I do this rather than rent cool new places forever? Or even same place forever for that matter. Wondering what I'm missing..

(This is also ignoring the fact that another house to maintain is really not something I'd like in my life right now, if ever..)

FTFY. All done. Can we go outside and play now?

Seconded!

As you note, owning makes no financial sense. Most buy because they want to be able to say that they own a second home. Maybe they have been told that they can rent it out and cover their costs but I've never seen that work in reality.

[Khaetra]

Every once in awhile I think it would be nice to own a second home.  But then I come to my senses and reality kicks in about cost, upkeep, how often would I really use it, etc.  It's much nicer to rent a place somewhere for a week, enjoy it and all the area has to offer then hand the key back when I am done.

[omachi]

This is a big thing in my neck of the woods, likely due to all the heavy Scandinavian influence. I've tried to work it out, too, but it doesn't seem to make a ton of sense for a single family. I could kinda see how the numbers could work if one included usage by friends and extended family. But then you're either playing rental manager for this cabin (and diminishing the likelihood that friends and family will use it as much) or you're providing a lovely service out of generosity, at which point the numbers only work for everybody else.

Now, if you could find a bit of cheap land, get friends and family together to build a small cabin, and get them to pitch in on a yearly maintenance weekend, all in exchange for them being able to use it now and then, you might be able to get things to work out in the long run. You can find an acre of land that's in the middle of nowhere around here for ~$5k. Taxes would be cheap. Insurance could just be liability. Of course, that's largely a social cabin, then. You could probably do better for just yourself by renting.

[mm1970]

I guess it depends on what you mean by "cabin".

My grandparents owned a camp.  My in laws own a camp and now my BIL and SIL also bought a camp in the same area that the inlaws camp is.

The camp is kind of like a cabin.  They can be really nice or really rustic.  Theirs were pretty rustic and have been improved upon.  There's running water.  One small bedroom and an attic with 4-5 open beds.  The camps that my inlaws have are seasonal, meaning the road is closed in the winter and so it's only open 9 months of the year.  The cost of these camps are now around $100k for a low-end one.  I'm sure my FIL and MIL paid closer to 10k 40 years ago.  The taxes and fees are lower because you don't own the land, the association owns the land.

In any event, the camp was about 20 minutes from home, on a man-made lake.  The family would go up almost every weekend, and would spend several straight weeks there in the summer.  Weather at the camp was usually a good 5-10 degrees cooler than at home, and with no AC, that was helpful.

So, it's not a "cabin" where you have to drive several hours to spend a week here and there. 

I think it falls into the category of an RV or 5th wheel, and how much you use it. 

We do not have the kind of jobs where we can take that much vacation (my FIL and MIL were self-employed, my SIL gets summers off). 
For us, a cabin would have to be close enough to go every weekend.  Oh, but I live in So Cal, so there's nothing within 1.5 hours that's cheap.  Plus, kids activities on the weekend.

My grandparents' camp was also very rustic, on a big piece of wooded land, and 15 minutes from their house.  It was a big extended family gathering place, and we got together every weekend in the summer.

[ol1970]

I love going up north and renting a cabin every year.  I would go more often if I owned one, and could see the value if I used it more than 3-4 months of the year.  It will never make financial sense though.  A good friend of mine who has a beautiful second home (he's very wealthy, like $20M+), and he put told me this: I could instead stay at the Ritz Carlton in a suite each time vs. using his condo and he would have come out ahead.  He just likes to be able to leave his shorts in the dresser and his flip flops by the door so to him it is worth it...but don't try and justify it financially because you'll drive yourself crazy.

I used VRBO for about 6 weeks of travel around the world last year, its cheap and awesome.  Have not stayed in a hotel in a long time.

[LifeHappens]

My grandparents' generation were cabin owners. I think there are two things in play here:
1) Cabins used to be pretty cheap. The cabins owned by my family were very simple, 2-3 room structures built to be winterized. They did not have heat or insulation, so construction was cheap and land was cheap.
2) This was what they did every weekend for 4-5 months out of the year. In fact, the women and kids stayed all summer while the men commuted from their jobs every weekend. They didn't vacation anywhere else. In summer it was cabin time, in the winter they went to work and stayed home on the weekend.

I think in those circumstances, owning a cabin makes sense.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

It makes absolutely no financial sense. Honestly, how could it? A cabin, like an RV, is simply a lifestyle choice. Renting will alway be cheaper.

[I'm a red panda]

I prefer options for my vacation. Owning a lake home, beach house, cabin, etc wouldn't make sense for me. 

The people who I know who have these inherited paid of properties.

[PoutineLover]

I think they are really nice ways to have weekends out in nature, as long as they are close enough to use regularly and the family can afford to maintain it. My partner's family has a cabin (two actually) but they've been in the family for over a generation, and there are many kids and grandkids who use them regularly. The maintenance must cost something, but since they use them pretty much every weekend, and they are only about an hour away, and fully paid for, the cost is much less than renting all the time. My family used to have a cottage, but it was sold when my great-grandmother died, since nobody wanted to take care of it and all of her kids wanted the money instead. It was sad, since I have many good memories there, but I had no say in the decision. So I'd say it depends how much it costs to buy + maintain and how much use it gets, and then you can do a cost-benefit analysis. It's important to consider the alternate vacations that would take place if you didn't have the getaway, and the benefit of having a place in nature away from the city, if that is important to you.

[o2bfree]

We owned a cabin on a nearby island for five years. We loved the place and had some good times there, but the extra maintenance got to be a drag. Also, the HOA started charging unreasonably large assessments for unnecessarily expensive improvements to the common areas. Fortunately, we'd bought the place on a short sale when the market was still down, so we made a nice little profit when we sold.

I sometimes regret selling, as we could have kept the place for a rental. But that has its own set of issues that we didn't care to deal with.

[Cromacster]

What's better than having a cabin?  Having a good friend with a cabin.

Many of my friends growing up had cabins.  In the Minneapolis area we even have "cabin traffic" on summer weekends (though I am guessing this is common elsewhere).  I always wanted one as a kid, but now as a grown up it sounds awful.  TWO houses to maintain!?  Thinking back my friends parents were usually working the entire weekend doing chores.

[Hula Hoop]

We had about a cabin (actually a house) about two hours from the big smoke when I was growing up.  It was in a beautiful mountainous area.  It was actually a huge hassle and my parents say that they would not to do again.  The issues I had as a kid were:

a) I was an only child until I was 10 and all my friends were back in the city on weekends so it was lonely.  My mother used to say "go and play in the creek" but playing by myself got old very quickly.  Sometimes we'd invite one of my city friends up for the weekend but otherwise it was not so fun and i just spent my time reading as I would have in the city.
b) I got horribly car sick on the way there and back which was torture.  2 hours each way of vomiting - bleugh.
c) maintaining a second home was stressful and expensive.  I remember the pipes burst one winter and that was a huge hassle.  Another time, local kids vandalized the place while we weren't there.  Not fun.

I'd never buy a weekend place but I would consider renting a cabin for a period of time to see how it is.  Unfortunately, I work a 9-5 job so we'd only be able to enjoy it on weekends though.

[Tabaxus]

No hotel will ever be as nice as your own second home, if it's somewhere you really do go super, super frequently, but I could never justify it from a financial perspective.  It's a consumption item for people with a ton of money, in my opinion.

[trollwithamustache]

So this whole cabin thing fascinates me. The Scandinavian extended part of the family does this. One family has a running water/no electricity type cabin with an outdoor shower. several others have various upgrades to "cabins" that are, well at least as nice as my real house and definitely with more tons of air conditioning! They are all "cabins". 

so... piece of land on a lake/pond/stream that you toss in a Yurt or other cheap structure seems like it could be quite reasonable and not 10k a year in taxes.  just don't invite HGTV over.

[turketron]

My family owns a cabin, it's been our family for about 50 years now. It's nothing fancy- running water and plumbing, but it's not winterized and has no heat other than a fireplace, no wifi, and no A/C. But it's on an amazing lake with great swimming and fishing, and it's very peaceful, with no outboard motors allowed on the water. It was originally my great-grandma's, then passed down to my grandmother, and now her kids own it; my parents are co-owners and so I'l probably be a co-owner at some point in the future. 

It's about an hour away from the city where most of my family lives, so it's easy to get to for a weekend or even just overnight. We (not me necessarily, but someone in the family) go up there every weekend in the summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Growing up, my siblings and I spent most of our summer up there, which was definitely cheaper than taking a real vacation as a family. We definitely get our money's worth out of it, as it replaces a lot of the vacations where we'd otherwise have to spend on hotels/flights.

We also rent it out a couple weekends a year, which covers a good portion of the cost of upkeep/property taxes.

All that being said, given what a new piece of property on the same lake costs now, if my family didn't already own it I'd have a very hard time recommending that anyone buy one these days.

[Scandium]

What's better than having a cabin?  Having a good friend with a cabin.

Many of my friends growing up had cabins.  In the Minneapolis area we even have "cabin traffic" on summer weekends (though I am guessing this is common elsewhere).  I always wanted one as a kid, but now as a grown up it sounds awful.  TWO houses to maintain!? Thinking back my friends parents were usually working the entire weekend doing chores.

Yeah this is another big one, separate from the finances. My dad still has to drive 3+ hrs several times a year just to mow lawn, turn on/off water and other minor things. No thanks! As a teenage I hate the "yard maintenance" weekends there. Each of them have been burglarized at least twice.

I think my parents will be disappointed when they want to get rid of their two cabins if us kids say we we don't want them. Though my siblings have both said they like the cabins and want my parents to keep them... Because they don't pay for them! I'm probably the only one of us who could afford to own them, but I don't want to.

[PKate]

My FIL and his brother inherited a small cabin on a lake.  The brother and his family  never use it.  My in laws live 4 miles from the lake and use the cabin largely to go swimming in the lake.   My DH and I used to go every summer for a few days till we moved out of the city and no longer feel the need to go somewhere quiet for vacation.  These days our vacations are all about visiting people we don't see enough of.

At some point my DH, his sister, and their cousin will inherit the place unless we can talk the family into doing something else with it. While my in laws still enjoy it there will come a time when they can't handle the maintenance anymore. None of the next generation nor my FIL's brother are interested in keeping it for various reasons.  I know my in laws want to keep it in the family but they are the only ones truly attached to keeping it.

[Tabaxus]

My family owns a cabin, it's been our family for about 50 years now. It's nothing fancy- running water and plumbing, but it's not winterized and has no heat other than a fireplace, no wifi, and no A/C. But it's on an amazing lake with great swimming and fishing, and it's very peaceful, with no outboard motors allowed on the water. It was originally my great-grandma's, then passed down to my grandmother, and now her kids own it; my parents are co-owners and so I'l probably be a co-owner at some point in the future. 

It's about an hour away from the city where most of my family lives, so it's easy to get to for a weekend or even just overnight. We (not me necessarily, but someone in the family) go up there every weekend in the summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Growing up, my siblings and I spent most of our summer up there, which was definitely cheaper than taking a real vacation as a family. We definitely get our money's worth out of it, as it replaces a lot of the vacations where we'd otherwise have to spend on hotels/flights.

We also rent it out a couple weekends a year, which covers a good portion of the cost of upkeep/property taxes.

All that being said, given what a new piece of property on the same lake costs now, if my family didn't already own it I'd have a very hard time recommending that anyone buy one these days.

Given the bolded, you have to account for the opportunity cost of not selling it.  You're still "paying" a ton to keep that property.  That may or may not be the right decision for you and your family, but don't treat it as if that's not what you're doing.

[Apples]

I'm under the impression that most people who have cabins have had them for decades.  In my family we're on the 4th generation.  It's probably going to get sold just because no one really claims responsibility for it anymore.  My great grandparents built it by hand with their children, it just got plumbing (a sink) this millennium, heated by a fire, with 4 rooms and can technically sleep 12-20 depending on how many kids you squeeze onto the same bed (when I was there we did 5 one night).  At least half of any trip up there is basic chores, followed by a few hours of seasonal maintenance to keep it running, for the adults.  None of them want to keep that going.

[Scandium]

So this whole cabin thing fascinates me. The Scandinavian extended part of the family does this. One family has a running water/no electricity type cabin with an outdoor shower. several others have various upgrades to "cabins" that are, well at least as nice as my real house and definitely with more tons of air conditioning! They are all "cabins". 

so... piece of land on a lake/pond/stream that you toss in a Yurt or other cheap structure seems like it could be quite reasonable and not 10k a year in taxes.  just don't invite HGTV over.

Ahh, yes. It's a whole weird scandinavian phenomenon I could go on about. It used to be as many here say; a tiny shack deep in the woods that some ancestor built with their hands (as was the case with my grandparents on both sides. Three cabins between them). This has changed though, especially in Norway with all the oil-wealth of last few decades. They've all become a bunch of dandies. Cabins are in "developments" close together, with water, electric, cable, wifi, hot-tub, plowing service etc. Or "rustic" ones that are still built with very expensive materials to high standards. Even simple ones must cost thousands a year in utilities and electric alone. E.g. something like this:
https://www.finn.no/realestate/leisuresale/ad.html?finnkode=112703778

I guess now mid-30 I'm the right age where several friends have posted about their new cabins on facebook. I'm not envious exactly, but these are pretty smart people.. I guess my scandinavian drive for a cabin is competing with my ruthless frugality. Being able to leave your slippers there seems like an extremely minor upside the counteract the financial and other hassle..

[Slow2FIRE]

My favorite one is the people I know who live in a small town up in the mountains and have a cabin they just built near another small town up in the mountains about a 45 minute drive away...

Still trying to figure it out.

[netskyblue]

My dad owns a cabin - it's a small prefab building, no running water but does have a generator for a lightbulb, and a propane stove.  On a piece of woodland that's been in our family for over 100 years.

[Fomerly known as something]

We, my parents and I use to own a vacation condo on the Florida panhandle.  We never broke even on costs even with renting most of the time until after the mortgage was paid off.  We bought it for personal reasons and used the rent to offset the cost.  The personal reasons changed and we sold it.  I don't think either of us would buy one again.

(One of the personal reasons is my sister lives in the area so we'd have extra space when visiting, now we'll happily rent for maybe $1000 for the week as we don't like to visit in their high season anyway.)   

[Michael in ABQ]

My brother-in-law bought a cabin in the mountains about an hour-and-a-half away. I think it was around $70k. It's got a living room, small kitchen, one bedroom, then a loft area above. Can comfortably fit his family of four and could probably fit two families if all the kids slept on the floor/couch.

I've only been up there once when we went hunting. It worked well for that and was nice to walk around in the woods and down to a lake. It's in a small development of about 50-75 similar cabins with a few year-round residents. It's only got an acre or two of land, enough that you can't quite see the neighbors through the trees.

I would find it hard to justify that cost. Granted in another decade or two he could probably sell it for about what he paid for it but it will need a fair amount of maintenance during that time plus the interest on the mortgage, property taxes, and opportunity cost. I know he's had to deal with mice and other animals chewing their way in plus the hassle of winterizing it.


I'd like to move to the mountains nearby and have a few acres of land. But we never have the time to go spend a weekend somewhere anyways so it would definitely not make sense for our family. I'd be hard pressed to spend $500 to rent someplace for a few days but when compared against the cost of owning that same property and likely only using it one or two weekends a month at the absolute most, it's a no-brainer.

[trollwithamustache]

So this whole cabin thing fascinates me. The Scandinavian extended part of the family does this. One family has a running water/no electricity type cabin with an outdoor shower. several others have various upgrades to "cabins" that are, well at least as nice as my real house and definitely with more tons of air conditioning! They are all "cabins". 

so... piece of land on a lake/pond/stream that you toss in a Yurt or other cheap structure seems like it could be quite reasonable and not 10k a year in taxes.  just don't invite HGTV over.

Ahh, yes. It's a whole weird scandinavian phenomenon I could go on about. It used to be as many here say; a tiny shack deep in the woods that some ancestor built with their hands (as was the case with my grandparents on both sides. Three cabins between them). This has changed though, especially in Norway with all the oil-wealth of last few decades. They've all become a bunch of dandies. Cabins are in "developments" close together, with water, electric, cable, wifi, hot-tub, plowing service etc. Or "rustic" ones that are still built with very expensive materials to high standards. Even simple ones must cost thousands a year in utilities and electric alone. E.g. something like this:
https://www.finn.no/realestate/leisuresale/ad.html?finnkode=112703778

I guess now mid-30 I'm the right age where several friends have posted about their new cabins on facebook. I'm not envious exactly, but these are pretty smart people.. I guess my scandinavian drive for a cabin is competing with my ruthless frugality. Being able to leave your slippers there seems like an extremely minor upside the counteract the financial and other hassle..

Dandy is right. a distant cousin (maybe?) has a separate building at his cabin for the wood fired pizza oven. Which is cool and I guess the guy can afford it. But cabin?

[db_cooper]

Agree that they rarely make financial sense.  But there are exceptions to every rule.   We found a slightly unfinished cabin during the last bubble burst, made a short sale offer,  got shot down by the bank, and ended up getting it in a foreclosure sale 2 years later for 50k less than our initial offer.  Spent 15K finishing it up and it immediately appraised for 2X what we paid for it.

It's 3 hours away, so we go over about twice a month, it's near skiiing, hiking, and a quaint faux Bavarian Village.  We'll either sell it in a few years, or move there permanently, haven't decided. Utilities, taxes, and insurance run about 2k per year, which is super cheap, so the carrying costs for how much we use it are fine, it's our main vacation spot.  It's also nicer than our main residence in a lot of ways.  As long as it doesn't burn down in one of our epic forest fires, it will be a good investment.  Just like stocks,  patience was key to finding a good deal.

[Pigeon]

Both my inlaws and my stepmother had small second homes.  They weren't very fancy, but they had plumbing and electricity.  Both were in nice, relaxing areas.  Having watched the dynamics around the houses, I wouldn't take one  as a gift.

It's enough work trying to maintain one house.  When they would go to the vacation homes, half the time was spent doing maintenance and cleaning, so it really wasn't nearly as relaxing as one would think.  It was also a lot of pressure.  My
stepmother would gripe all the time about not maximizing every minute being there because it cost a fair amount to own the place and she worried she wasn't getting value out out it. 

It also was a source of contention with the kids.  Once the kids get old enough, they have activities and friends.  They're on teams.  They don't want to leave home every weekend to be holed up in a cramped space with their parents.  While he has some nice childhood memories, my husband got to a point where he really dreaded going to the vacation house.

We rent a nice house on a lake every summer for a tiny fraction of what it would cost to maintain the house my ILs want us to take over.  We don't have to clean or put up screens or paint on vacation, we just relax.

[SimpleCycle]

We thought about it for 5 minutes once, back of the enveloped the math, and now happily rent places when we vacation.  Plus we've realized we like going to different places instead of the same place every time.

[badger1988]

There seems to be quite the range of what people consider cabins. My parents own a cabin on about an acre of riverfront property in the middle of a national forest in northern Wisconsin. We used it heavily when I was growing up, and many of my best memories are from time spent there. Purchase price was 15k in the early 90s. Taxes are next to nothing. No insurance. Worth every penny.

[SimpleCycle]

There seems to be quite the range of what people consider cabins. My parents own a cabin on about an acre of riverfront property in the middle of a national forest in northern Wisconsin. We used it heavily when I was growing up, and many of my best memories are from time spent there. Purchase price was 15k in the early 90s. Taxes are next to nothing. No insurance. Worth every penny.

This sounds awesome to me, but I don't think there's much like this within easy driving distance of our metro area.  Even the more "remote" places still had lots of amenities and a decent price tag.

[MayDay]

I live in Mpls and this is a big thing. I never knew it was Scandinavian! Makes sense though.

My mum is Danish and always went up to the cabin (rented, not owned). But itwasmore like a shack in the woods. Now cabins are huge second homes. No thanks.

I do hope to do a month or two in AZ and a month or two in the North woods each year once retired. But we'll build the rental cost into our budget. I've no interest in worrying about house maintenance or blls or really anything, on a second home.

[swaneesr]

I am a lake cabin owner. My DW and I are up there nearly every weekend from April 1st to closing in mid-October. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, my employer allows me to work from the cabin on Fridays. My DW is a teacher and has the Summers off. We drain the water down and go there every few weekends in the Winter.

We love the place. My kids learned to waterski behind the old ‘88 Searay, we have an old pontoon boat. Great memories.

Maintenance is no problem. I am a better and more self-sufficient person because of owning a cabin. Not a problem at all. Last year I took it upon myself to learn all about small engines especially carburators.

Like your primary residence. Not an investment.

Not a status symbol. A place of solitude.

Swanee




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[chouchouu]

If you're east coast I would just fly over and use the grandparents cabin every second year.

Dh is Polish and we co-own with his sister the cabin his father built. We replaced the kitchen and bathroom recently and the deck but maintenance isn't much. It's a pain first weekend of summer cleaning it for habitation but it's nice to have a place in the woods since we live in an apartment. We travel back to Poland pretty much every year and spend most of the time there. It works out well for us since my three month stays in Europe pretty much don't cost us anything since cost of living difference about covers the airfare.

[Bicycle_B]

Now that people are showing off their cabins, can you visit the people and stay in the cabins for free? 

Go "Oh, your cabin is so wonderful! I have to tell my friends how successful you are!  Your cabin is the best" - an emotional payment of sorts, maybe?

[SC93]

That would mean we would have to go to the SAME place every year and basically do the same thing every year. We go on a lot of vacations but let's take our annual Florida vacation. We stay all up and down the coast from Pensacola to Destin (our daughter lives by Destin but we rarely stay at her house). Sometimes we wander to Daytona/Miami/Key West. We could buy a lot in the same area our daughter lives in but then we would be trapped.... like a rat. If we owned a cabin there we wouldn't feel like we could ever go to the midwest or upper east coast.... that trapped like a rat feeling.... Kind of like having a J O B :)

[Linea_Norway]

I live in Norway and own a small cabin (60 m2). I can confirm that it is not a great investment of my money. It is purely an emotional thing. I like to stay in a cabin from time to time. And it is very nice to have a cabin containing your own stuff in a area that you get a chance to know well. The area is good for hiking in mountains, canoeing on a river, fishing grayling and trout, cross country skiing, and seeing lots of wildlife.

We pay close to $2.000 a year for it. That includes having electricity, wood for the stove, property taxes, private road fees, snow cleaning fee, garbage fee, voluntary pay for ski tracks, no mortgage. The cabin is relatively new and doesn't require a lot of maintenance, although we have spent a summer laying shingle on the roof and another summer digging better drainage. So yes, there is always something to be done.

In 2017 we used it for 30 days and that was despite not being able to go there the whole autumn. This year we are doing better. The more we use it, the cheaper it will be for every use. On the other hand, I didn't calculate the transport for getting there. A long drive + toll road adds up. But we would also have transportation costs if we would have gone somewhere else. I wouldn't have bought a cabin that couldn't be used during half the year for seasonal reasons.

Our cabin has gone down about 25% in price value. At least, the neighbour cabin was recently sold for the same price that we paid for our cabin 7 years ago. And the neighbour cabin is quite a bit bigger than ours and suited for more people.

If we hadn't owned a cabin, we would have used the tent more (free camping). I would also have rented one of my company's cabins more often. I used to rent a company cabin a couple of weekend a year in the past and then I would pay about as much as our own cabin costs me for a weekend.

[Linea_Norway]

My parents in law used to own a small and old cabin 20 minutes driving from their own home, close to a lake. A nice place to be. But they were providing for everyone else. Cousins, friends, sister of a friend. Anytime DH and I were in the vicinity we could never use it, because there was always someone else using it. I don't think anyone ever paid for it.

Our place is not used by others than ourselves. It might play a role that our family lives in another country. Sometimes we invite friends to stay together with us, but that is for our own sake.

We have considered renting it out, because that would be a great way to go even. Like, the easter holiday is a week where you normally can ask some substantial money for your cabin. And probably also in the autumn during a school vacation of during the hunting season. But I have been looking on airBnB what similar cabins are rented out for and that is a very low price. As we live far from the cabin, we would have to organize that someone would need to check whether it is clean before the next guest. We would need to secure that the guests remember to turn of the electricity and leave the fridge open. We would probably need to pay someone local to do this. We figured it isn't worth the hassle and stress for such a low rental price. And during the easter month, I very much like to be there myself.

[Clever Name]

Vacation rentals can be a very profitable investment in the right circumstances. So the idea that you can't possibly get your money back by renting it out is definitely not true. You have to do the research and buy based on more than just your own vacation desires though.

[chasesfish]

Lookup this interesting lady...I'd call her a hobby cabin builder:

http://tinyhouseontheprairie.net/

I think she's more of the creative type than the make a ton of money type, because with the economics of these things I'd raise investor money and own 10 really quick vs 1-2 and move on to the next deal.

[Scandium]

Vacation rentals can be a very profitable investment in the right circumstances. So the idea that you can't possibly get your money back by renting it out is definitely not true. You have to do the research and buy based on more than just your own vacation desires though.

Good thing I never claimed anything like that then? Of course you can. I've looked around here and never found the numbers to work. Not to mention the hassle/expense of having to rent your property every week. But I'm sure in some places it's very profitable.

[GuitarStv]

When I lived very far up north most people had a cabin.  A cabin is an space without running water or electricity so there isn't any upkeep.  It's effectively a fancy non-movable tent.  A decent sized piece of property near a lake would be about 15 grand, and building the cabin would cost about five grand.  That seems pretty reasonable.

If you're talking about a cabin where the price of land is expensive, where it's built like a house, and where there are regular utility bills . . . yeah, that's nuts.

[Clever Name]

Vacation rentals can be a very profitable investment in the right circumstances. So the idea that you can't possibly get your money back by renting it out is definitely not true. You have to do the research and buy based on more than just your own vacation desires though.

Good thing I never claimed anything like that then? Of course you can. I've looked around here and never found the numbers to work. Not to mention the hassle/expense of having to rent your property every week. But I'm sure in some places it's very profitable.

I wasn't necessarily responding specifically to you. Several people in this thread have claimed that it could never make sense financially.

[Fishindude]

Guilty here, we have two such properties.   One is a small farm with a nice pole building cabin I use for a hunting camp, roughly $200K value, the other is a full blown lake home with all the bells and whistles, roughly $500K value.   You are correct that it really doesn't make much financial sense.   Cabins are just expensive toys like airplanes or boats, if you're lucky you might get a little long term appreciation over the time you own it and sell for more than you bought it for, but you would be unlikely to ever recoup you annual upkeep and expenses.  This is something you do with cash, don't borrow for it.

Obviously, your cabin needs to be located someplace you really enjoy.  Having everything you need there and just showing up to relax and enjoy the country is pretty priceless.   We've also really enjoyed entertaining family and friends at these locations which is a bunch of fun.   Our family, friends, kids and grand kids might not have been able to have such nice vacations, had we not been able to put them up and provide the facilities.   I'm thankful we can do that.

If it gets too burdensome or expensive, we'll just sell them, but for now we are enjoying them.

[Scandium]

When I lived very far up north most people had a cabin.  A cabin is an space without running water or electricity so there isn't any upkeep.  It's effectively a fancy non-movable tent.  A decent sized piece of property near a lake would be about 15 grand, and building the cabin would cost about five grand.  That seems pretty reasonable.

If you're talking about a cabin where the price of land is expensive, where it's built like a house, and where there are regular utility bills . . . yeah, that's nuts.

Hah! Saw some land for sale near a popular vacation lake here in MD for $150,000-200,000+! If it's next to water of any kind here on the crowded east coast the land will cost that much at least, probably more. 15 grand would be nuts

[CBnCO]

I think this was the subject of a MMM article a while ago. Same conclusion, second home ownership is expensive.

It did, however, work out great for us....but, only after we sold our primary and expensive house and moved into our much smaller and cheaper cabin!

[Glenstache]

Agree that they rarely make financial sense.  But there are exceptions to every rule.   We found a slightly unfinished cabin during the last bubble burst, made a short sale offer,  got shot down by the bank, and ended up getting it in a foreclosure sale 2 years later for 50k less than our initial offer.  Spent 15K finishing it up and it immediately appraised for 2X what we paid for it.

It's 3 hours away, so we go over about twice a month, it's near skiiing, hiking, and a quaint faux Bavarian Village.  We'll either sell it in a few years, or move there permanently, haven't decided. Utilities, taxes, and insurance run about 2k per year, which is super cheap, so the carrying costs for how much we use it are fine, it's our main vacation spot.  It's also nicer than our main residence in a lot of ways.  As long as it doesn't burn down in one of our epic forest fires, it will be a good investment.  Just like stocks,  patience was key to finding a good deal.

So that's where DB Cooper ended up! Did you pay cash?

I think your cabin is near mine if it is the same faux-Bavarin village. My annual expenses for utilities, maintenance and taxes are about $1000/year and i go out as often as I can. Financially, it is probably a break even, and a loss if compared to investing what I have in it. If someone offered me the right size of check, I would sell it. But I have a lot of time and effort invested in it, and being able to decide to go away at 4:30 on Friday is really nice (and happens often).

I consider it an asset, but not an investment.

[Just Joe]

Buy a plot of land and throw a kit home on the place.

https://www.84lumber.com/projects-plans/home-plans/vacation/watertown/

$38K plus land plus services.

Yeah, easier/cheaper to rent.

The one cabin I know of pays a neighbor to watch over the place and keep the grass knocked down. Prob costs a couple thousand a year for that service.

[Jrr85]

Vacation rentals can be a very profitable investment in the right circumstances. So the idea that you can't possibly get your money back by renting it out is definitely not true. You have to do the research and buy based on more than just your own vacation desires though.

My rule of thumb is that anything that sounds fun or that people like to say they have (e.g., a beach house/condo, river/lake house, even a fish camp), it's hard to make a good return on.  The vacation areas near me (at least the ones people would brag about owning; there may be some more rustic vacation options that you can get to cash flow) are, at best, appreciation plays.  Even then you pretty much have to manage them yourself because the local property managers take so much for short term rentals.  That said, they have all been on a pretty good tear since the financial crisis.  Certainly lots of people bought at prices up through 2012 and probably later who cash flowed immediately and also got big appreciation.  But even then, they probably could have done better by buying just basic rental property. 

That said, if there is another downturn, I might try for a beach condo with the intent of eventually relocating to it.