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Fire prone area, eh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeW6kuZgPY4
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Oct 28, 2022 22:03
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Hadlock posted:Whoops I meant to write Sonora, which is in a different part of wildfire country, closer to Yosemite, about 150 miles from Sonoma There's a reason it's that cheap, there's gently caress-all to do there and you get hit with wildfires every year. My in-laws are up in the Sierras up US-50, and have miraculously not lost fire insurance despite he Caldor fire came within a mile of them last year. This year they had the Mosquito fire to deal with on the other side of the valley. Their friends further up 50 have no fire insurance and are hosed if another big one comes. As for entertainment, your closest big city is like, Stockton or Modesto. If you're up US-50/I-80, you have your choice of shows coming in to Sacramento or Reno at least.
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Oct 28, 2022 22:24
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I grew up in Twain Harte (20 minutes up the hill from Sonora) and I agree about the fire risk and being a boring-rear end place to live. I enjoyed being there as a kid, but haven't been back since my early twenties.
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Oct 28, 2022 22:33
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:there really needs to be a hefty tax on unoccupied real estate
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Oct 28, 2022 22:39
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There's properties along 50 that serve as rentals and vacation homes (both): rent them out during ski season, vacation in the summer. I looked at a bunch last year, just out of curiosity. If you could airBnB them every weekend through snow season that'd cover a good amount of the cost of a $250k cabin. But you're running a business, you'd need to live close enough to go to the property and clean it between each booking or else hire someone to do that, they're all maintenance hog type buildings because of the seasonal weather, age, etc.; and there's the fire risk which affects both the chances of a catastrophic loss, and the value as a rental property. After an afternoon or two of idle daydreaming I came to my senses. It's just insanely risky. CA's climate is changing and the climate of the sierra especially so. We pretty much just shouldn't be building homes within the forests of the state. I love the romantic ideal of a getaway in the beauty and solitude of the forest but we have hosed that dream up by boiling the planet so I gotta just let it go.
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Oct 28, 2022 22:40
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Communities are also becoming hostile to vacation rental up that way. Some HOAs don't approve of it, and then there's South Lake Tahoe with a vacation rental limit in large parts of the village. I've toyed with the idea a bit - vacation property in the mountains while renting in the city - but i'm not sure how i'd feel about renting out my cabin to other people. And that's even before the cleaning fees, platform fees, insurance et c.
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Oct 28, 2022 23:30
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Yeah every time I run the same calculations, I come to the conclusion that it's just not worth the effort. I'd rather just pay for a vacation when I want that once or twice a year and put the rest of my money into stocks/bonds/etc. and enjoy my free time instead of worrying about every new guest possibly destroying the place.
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Oct 28, 2022 23:42
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yeah the idea was to have a place to accrue real estate equity, have some vacations, etc. and as it turned out, like within weeks after looking at that we just needed to start shoveling money at various family members in trouble so there was zero "extra" money for terrible speculative real estate investments I also had the hadlock idea of buying something in a recently-burned area until I did the research and figured out that a recent burn "protects" you for anywhere from zero to maybe up to six or eight years max, and that's all, and oh by the way maybe you just have no electricity, water, etc. any more, all that stuff. don't buy a home in the california woodlands folks, just don't do it
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Oct 28, 2022 23:47
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If you're buying acreage it's unlikely it's got an HOA attached to it, although I did run into a handful of gated communities of 10 acre lots out in hidden valley lake (~90 min north of SF in the middle of the night) and cool, ca (2 hours east) Most of the 2+ acres I saw usually had a woefully inadequate $100/year road maintenance association fee to keep the (paved) road from totally destroying your vehicle suspension as it wasn't county maintained This would be like, 3 acres of hobby vineyard, extra acreage for privacy from neighbors, some structure approximating sleeping and eating quarters that could be heated and cooled, a pool and detached garage of some sort for summer vacation, Thanksgiving and Christmas time, not a full time or even retirement home. Probably not an airbnb unless things got really dire Edit: not doing woodland, would be clearing most of it if needed, plus some "wild" areas for local wildlife. The part of Sonora we were in was mostly rolling (tinder dry) grass with 3-5 oak trees per acre (also tinder dry! Yay!  )
Hadlock fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Oct 28, 2022 |
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Oct 28, 2022 23:49
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moana posted:We've got one on the ballot this year in santa cruz, let's see if it goes through! Godspeed
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Oct 29, 2022 06:30
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Sort of a crossover between this thread’s current discussion and the BWM thread, My parents have had a timeshare in South Lake Tahoe for years. It’s way up on the ridge which is just about as high in elevation as you can get while being reasonably close to restaurants, casinos, and the lake. The rooms are big. Like 2 bed 2 bath full kitchen can easily fit idk 6 adults pretty comfortably big. My two siblings and I have gone up there with them every summer as far back as I can remember. We used to love going to the lake, on hikes, the casino arcade, and the timeshare itself has a gym, tennis courts, pools, bingo, racquetball, saunas, a ton of stuff. As my siblings and I got older we would hang out with my folks during the day and early evening, then say peace to the folks and hit the casinos at night. We all knew timeshares are a bad deal but hey, we weren’t paying for it and it was actually a great family vacation we took every year. It’s been pretty sweet. But fires are starting to really gently caress it up. I was going to use the timeshare for a bachelor party in 2021 but the whole drat lake nearly caught on fire, so we went to Sacramento instead. If you’ve driven up 50 to Tahoe recently, it’s still scorched and probably will be. We did get up there this year and had a great time, though! Well. Folks are getting older, as folks do. Last year they told my newlywed wife and I that they can’t really handle the 8000’ altitude anymore. So they offered to sign it over to us for no cost other than (of course) the maintenance fees, which are currently about $1400/year for that 2b/2b for a week a year. And it’s like. My wife and I know that timeshares suck. But it’s compounded by the fact that even getting there might not even be possible on the regular if any area around the 2 highways up the mountain are on fire. Which they almost certainly will be! But we have two kids, 8 and 10 (technically my step kids), and they’ve also fallen in love with the place in the three years we’ve taken them up there. Reading this is super first world problems.txt. There is a local community in Tahoe of super nice people and a lot of them are in the service industry and rely on tourism. Idk, it’s a real bummer that’s such a beautiful place may become inhabitable or deserted because it will be straight up not safe to travel or stay there in the near or immediate future. Highbrow Slick fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Oct 29, 2022 |
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Oct 29, 2022 07:00
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$1400 a year for a good size condo in Tahoe that you can schedule out a year in advance is probably worth keeping especially if you have kids. An Airbnb you don't have any history with would cost 3x that
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Oct 29, 2022 07:37
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Highbrow Slick posted:My parents have had a timeshare Lol no. Just no. Hadlock posted:$1400 a year for a good size condo in Tahoe that you can schedule out a year in advance is probably worth keeping especially if you have kids. An Airbnb you don't have any history with would cost 3x that An airbnb doesn't charge you for maintenance annually, have zero ways to sell it or even abandon it, and can't increase fees that you have no choice but to pay for maintenance or to rebuilt it after it burns down in the future. If it's that cheap compared to market it's one or both run down or has an underfunded association or whatever they call it and somebody's gonna have to be on the hook for making up the difference. That's going to be the "owners".
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Oct 29, 2022 16:08
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Yeah figure out if you can walk away when it inevitably burns down and if the answer is no you should bail
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Oct 29, 2022 16:19
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Hadlock posted:$1400 a year for a good size condo in Tahoe that you can schedule out a year in advance is probably worth keeping especially if you have kids. An Airbnb you don't have any history with would cost 3x that I've seen plenty of 2 or 3 bedroom vacation rentals in Truckee that would cost about that much for a week. I don't think it ends up being a huge cost savings.
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Oct 31, 2022 16:46
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Not to promote a timeshare because lol, but Truckee aint Tahoe. Sure, they're sorta close on a map, but one of them is a world-class vacation spot and the other is Truckee.
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Oct 31, 2022 17:40
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Truckee vs Tahoe is like comparing the sf peninsula to stockton.
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Oct 31, 2022 17:45
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Do you really "go to" Truckee? Isn't it just a less expensive place for lodging on a trip to Lake Tahoe? It's the Oahu to Tahoe's Maui, imho
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Oct 31, 2022 17:46
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I feel like I've had equivalent experiences staying in both places, but maybe I'm just a cheap date.
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Oct 31, 2022 17:51
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Highbrow Slick posted:Sort of a crossover between this thread’s current discussion and the BWM thread, I would not under any circumstance take over that timeshare. If you want to use it, go ahead and pay the maintenance fees to your parents so it's not a financial burden to them, but DO NOT put it under your name. I don't know the specifics of that particular timeshare, if it's a part of a larger timeshare org or not, but in general most timeshares are pretty much worthless and in some cases I've seen people PAY other people to take them off their hands. They're often just given away to folks, and once in a while they may have a little bit of resale value, but that isn't often. I'm giving generalized advice as I don't know the details, but don't do this. full disclosure: I own a timeshare interest through Disney, and I've researched other timeshare programs like Marriot extensively.
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Oct 31, 2022 18:12
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Muir posted:I feel like I've had equivalent experiences staying in both places, but maybe I'm just a cheap date. A ski in/out condo in Truckee would be challenging to find.
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Oct 31, 2022 18:14
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Residency Evil posted:A ski in/out condo in Truckee would be challenging to find. Sure, but the time share in question doesn't sound like it's ski in/out either, nor particularly close to downtown: Highbrow Slick posted:It’s way up on the ridge which is just about as high in elevation as you can get while being reasonably close to restaurants, casinos, and the lake.
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Oct 31, 2022 18:17
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skipdogg posted:full disclosure: I own a timeshare interest through Disney, and I've researched other timeshare programs like Marriot extensively. What makes the Disney one worth your time vs one on lake Tahoe? Honestly curious.
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Oct 31, 2022 18:30
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Leperflesh posted:Not to promote a timeshare because lol, but Truckee aint Tahoe. Sure, they're sorta close on a map, but one of them is a world-class vacation spot and the other is Truckee. “We think she’s dating the Truckee River Killer. We don’t think she can do better.”
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Oct 31, 2022 18:40
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Hadlock posted:What makes the Disney one worth your time vs one on lake Tahoe? Honestly curious. So the main issue with most timeshare products is they last forever and they can be difficult to get out of and often have zero resale value. Folks end up getting stuck with a timeshare interest they no longer want, maybe they can no longer afford the maintenance fees on, and it can be difficult to get rid of the timeshare. You can see over at the Timeshare User Group boards folks giving away their timeshares for free, and sometimes coming out of pocket to cover the transfer fees. https://tugbbs.com/forums/forums/free-timeshare-giveaways-and-bargain-deals.55/ (The TUG board is fantastic timeshare resource) The advantages of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) (the mouse gave it a very friendly name so you forget that at its core it's a timeshare) to me are: 1) Resale value. There's a whole lot of crazy Disney people out there and the DVC contracts hold their resale value extremely well. I paid 125 dollars a point for mine a little over 5 years ago, and I could sell it for 160 to 165 a point today. If I need to exit, I can get out in about 60 to 75 days from listing it for sale to money hitting my account. It's also really easy to rent points out to other people and make a little money on the side if you aren't going to use them. We use the points though. 2) It's a point based system, not fixed week system, so there's flexibility in your vacation plans. I can use my points at multiple different resorts, for different room categories and sizes, and I can choose when to use the points in a given year. I am not committed to the 49th week of the year in a 2 bedroom unit. To be fair most modern timeshare programs have some sort of point system in place, it varies by company. 3) The contracts actually expire. After 50 years the deeded interest reverts back to Disney. I'm off the hook for the maintenance fees and everything else. I see this as a positive, because I'll be 80 years old in 2060 when my contract expires and I if I'm still alive, I won't have to worry about getting rid of it. It's very likely I sell way before that happens, but we'll see. The downsides are I'm pretty much locked into the Disney resorts, unless I trade out into Interval International which doesn't make sense at all, because you can rent the points for cash and then just pay cash for a different destination. There are some booking restrictions in place so if you want certain rooms at certain times you need to plan your vacations out at least 11 months in advance which is a little nerve-racking at times. Not all timeshares are bad, I have some older family members who use them and get great value from them. You've got to understand the ins and outs of each program and all the little intricacies and how to best use them though. Most people don't though due to the way they're sold with high pressure tactics and people get stuck in something they don't understand. Which is why I generally tell people to stay away unless they understand exactly what they're getting into. If OP wants to name the resort, I could give better advice.
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Oct 31, 2022 19:07
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skipdogg posted:Not all timeshares are bad, I have some older family members who use them and get great value from them. FYI, what needs to be pointed out here is that those family members also haven't had maintenance fees hiked above what they can afford or had any assessments put on them. The economics of a timeshare model basically require that this is a thing that can happen to them per the contract/title restrictions. Just like them literally not being able to abandon their ownership. These are things that have not happened to them, and that's great. But they can so the risk calculation entirely changes and wraps back around to "bad deal". There are no good timeshares. I'm sorry you and your family have been sucked into this bottom feeding industry multiple times. You should use that as a cautionary tale, not as advice to others to follow in your path.
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Oct 31, 2022 19:37
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Just in case anyone wants a random data point, I renewed my pre-approval today and they gave me a rate of 6.75%, credit score 815.
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Oct 31, 2022 20:32
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Bought a 3br/2ba (technically 4br but the 4th one doesnt have a closet) a little under a year ago. It's built in 1983 in Massachusetts, ranch style house with the lower level/basement half-exposed which overlooks a river. I paid $480k for it and luckily got an 3.8% interest rate 30-year fixed mortgage before interest started going up. However, being a single guy (35) on my own it feels like A LOT of space. I've lived in apartments and grew up in apartments most of my life, so having this much space to myself feels very weird but also empowering. It sits on an 8.2 acre lot with an overgrown frontage on another street. I'd say about 50% of the acreage is marshlands as well. I mainly wanted to live away from neighbors and have enough land that nobody would complain about me using power tools and playing loud music which has worked out really well. I was wondering if anybody had any experience with houses around this time period, things that I should look out for and be aware of, and possibly any high priority renovations I should focus on? Or anything like tax tricks or ways I can utilize the property to help offset costs (I've been considering roommates, but ehhhh)? Most stuff is in great condition, a lot of the renovations I plan on doing are mostly aesthetic, nothing really structural needs to be replaced or fixed. I've got most of the tools I need to do renovations on my own, this is definitely going to be a project house for me to learn how to fix up and maintain a house like this, so I appreciate any suggestions or advice anyone can give me in advanced. Currently getting everything ready for winter, cleaning gutters, stained/weatherproofed my deck, stocking up on wood for the basement stove, etc. Luckily I live on a private road with other folks, and we all pitch in to pay for plows to come take care of snow. Edit: Woops, I didn't realize there was a Home Ownership thread...reposting there. ceebee fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Oct 31, 2022 |
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Oct 31, 2022 21:04
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Yup for folks who don't know, there's a parallel thread to this one, for home ownership chat: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3774735
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Oct 31, 2022 21:17
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Leperflesh posted:Yup for folks who don't know, there's a parallel thread to this one, for home ownership chat: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3774735 Don't forget also about Home Zone, which has some overlap but more of a DIY / trades focus: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3770037 There is also a wiring thread which has been very helpful.
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Oct 31, 2022 21:44
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skipdogg posted:https://tugbbs.com/forums/forums/free-timeshare-giveaways-and-bargain-deals.55/ did anyone else read this url as "tugjobs.com"
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Oct 31, 2022 21:48
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Inner Light posted:Don't forget also about Home Zone, which has some overlap but more of a DIY / trades focus: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3770037 Awesome thanks for the info, definitely looking into this.
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Oct 31, 2022 22:37
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QuarkJets posted:did anyone else read this url as "tugjobs.com"
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Oct 31, 2022 22:53
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skipdogg posted:1) Resale value. There's a whole lot of crazy Disney people out there and the DVC contracts hold their resale value extremely well. I paid 125 dollars a point for mine a little over 5 years ago, and I could sell it for 160 to 165 a point today. You sure about them holding their value that well? 
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Oct 31, 2022 23:01
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Timeshares are hilarious. It's like an MLM for a vacation hotel room. The only people I've known with timeshares fall for pyramid schemes with some regularity. This country is so dumb. Self included.
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Oct 31, 2022 23:08
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CRUSTY MINGE posted:Timeshares are hilarious. It's like an MLM for a vacation hotel room. The only people I've known with timeshares fall for pyramid schemes with some regularity. Timeshares are an ideal vehicle for scamming boomers, who saw real estate values growing massively for decade after decade. They can't afford a vacation house but can afford 1/100th of a condo somewhere and think "well this will surely explode in value just like my house did, don't wanna miss out on that, plus maybe I'll take a vacation in Swampville, Mississippi from time to time - and if I rent it out then it's like I'm the hotel! SHOW ME THE MEAT!"
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Oct 31, 2022 23:40
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luminalflux posted:You sure about them holding their value that well? But that does say it held value. If you can sell it for the same or similar price vs having to pay people to take them you're doing a lot better than most time shares. I remember going to a timeshare presentation with my parents when I was a kid. They were just doing it to get Busch Gardens tickets, but even 12 year old me could see the scummy sales tactics and question the value proposition. They preyed directly on my parents desire to be good parents with the implication that only going to the outer banks was somehow letting us down. The salesman actually asked me to leave the room because I was making a fuss about it. Absolute scum. awkward_turtle fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 00:38
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awkward_turtle posted:But that does say it held value. If you can sell it for the same or similar price vs having to pay people to take them you're doing a lot better than most time shares. Yeah I guess it held value in that it's worth a few % more than when bought, but "I bought for 125 in 2017 and it's worth 165 now" means your investment gained like, $15 and not $40-45
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Nov 1, 2022 02:42
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I know this is just anecdata, but there has to be some kind of geographical difference in people falling for timeshares. Because I swear that my entire life growing up across the East Coast (NY, PA, NC, GA, DE, NJ) all I ever heard from adults was, "Timeshares are a scam, timeshares are a scam, never get into timeshares, they are a scam." I never even thought of them as something people actually did because it had been drilled into me that they were scams. Then I moved to California and every motherfucker here who is three generations deep in this state is bitching about their timeshares. At first I actually stopped them to ask whether it was a scam because I literally didn't think people seriously had them, and they would give me this weird look and tell me how great timeshares were before returning back to bitching about how their particular timeshare sucked. So, I don't know. California is a land of contrasts (and timeshares) I guess.
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Nov 1, 2022 07:38
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Anonymous Zebra posted:I know this is just anecdata, but there has to be some kind of geographical difference in people falling for timeshares. Because I swear that my entire life growing up across the East Coast (NY, PA, NC, GA, DE, NJ) all I ever heard from adults was, "Timeshares are a scam, timeshares are a scam, never get into timeshares, they are a scam." I never even thought of them as something people actually did because it had been drilled into me that they were scams. Then I moved to California and every motherfucker here who is three generations deep in this state is bitching about their timeshares. At first I actually stopped them to ask whether it was a scam because I literally didn't think people seriously had them, and they would give me this weird look and tell me how great timeshares were before returning back to bitching about how their particular timeshare sucked. So, I don't know. California is a land of contrasts (and timeshares) I guess. I really don't think it's geographical
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Nov 1, 2022 09:10
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