Anyone own a ski condo?

[katie111]

My DH and I are considering purchasing s ski condo. We have been going to the same mountain for 5 years and love it. We have done a seasonal rental every year with DH's family. The seasonal rental market at this ski area is very tight and we cannot find anything to rent this year. We have been discussing buying something for a couple years but finally have the finances to do so. We are looking at a 3 bedroom for around $200k. We have about 100k to put into a down payment and the condos are sold furnished. HOA fees and taxes are about $8000 a year. The past 2 years we have spent every weekend up there in Jan, Feb, and March as well as Dec and Feb vacations. We would also use the property for a couple weeks in the summer. We would like to rent it out at least enough to cover the taxes and HOA fees. It's a very popular area in the fall for foliage season and there is large hotel there so you can get a lot of weekend rentals for weddings. Our kids are 6, 9, and 10 and love to ski. We have friends who also just bought a place at this mountain.

So, for those of you that own a ski house/condo, what are the pros/cons of owning a place vs renting?

 

[jjameson]

We own a vacation condo and here are some of the things we didn't think of until we owned.
HOA assessments that come in addition to dues. $30,000 for redoing the pool area and when it wasn't winterized correctly another $10,000 the next year. Needless to say that's 40,000 we weren't planning on paying. And as properties get older or more use, assessments can be a big unforeseen expenditure. Also, if you are planning on renting it out, how? If anything goes wrong when you are renting, say the dishwasher breaks, you have to drop what you are doing to take care of it. Are you in the position to do that? If not, you can go through a company like we do but they take 30% of the rental fee. If you rent yourself, also consider more who will be cleaning it before each rental and who will be doing inventory on what's broken or missing before and after a renter leaves. Plus with renters there significantly more wear and tear than with just your families use. Another big thing about needing to rent to cover fees is that most people want to rent when you want to be up their enjoying it, weekends and school holidays.

Now that being said we do love our condo but if I could go back, we'd most likely still be renting and leave the hassle to someone else. Also we purchased a condo where the average owner makes more than we do so the board isn't a budget friendly with things like assessments as we'd like. Something else to look into

 

[Lilliputian]

One of the reasons that we've decided against owning a vacation home and renting it out is because you have to keep it in tip-top shape when you have renters. With a vacation home that you don't rent, you can feel free to furnish it with the cast-off furniture from your own home. When something is out of date, as long as it still functions, you can leave it there. For example, if the TV still works and you're happy with it, it's good. If you have renters, you have to stay on top of things like flat screen, high-def TVs. When the colors on the bedding aren't the "in" colors anymore, you have to change them. If you decorated everything with owls right now because you love owls, you'd have to get rid of them in a few years when owls aren't the latest thing anymore.

I guess to some extent it depends on the area you'd be buying and what the rental market is like there. We've only considered a rental house close to WDW, where the market is completely flooded, so you have to be the "best" to get renters. If you bought in an area with a tighter market, you might not have to go to quite the same lengths.

 

[katie111]

Thanks so much for the replies. Definitely some things to think about. We would probably just rent through the resort there. They do take a big chunk (about 40%) but their rental fees are ridiculously high so we'd still make at least $200 a night even in the summer and around $500 a night for a vacation week if we decide there is a school vacation week we don't want to use it for. As for decor, as long as the place is decent, the resort does not care too much about how it is decorated. Most people just seem to do a ski/lodge type theme and that seems to work over time. I definitely don't relish the thought of having strangers in my home though, so I'm going to have to try to get over that.

Would love to hear any other feedback from anyone that owns or has thought about owning a vacation home.

 

[manning]

This involves travel trailers but the same applies

My friend raked himself into buying one rationalizing it would be much cheaper than hotels. Well after paying for maintainence, insurance etc. he found out it cost the same as hotels. The big plus was he didn't have the other headaches to contend with.

Same with us when we thought about buying a condo on Sanibel island. After penciling everything out we passed. The plus too was we weren't tied down to one spot.

So think on it for awhile before you decide what to do.

 

[crisi]

We have friends with a vacation home.

Renting it out is a lot harder than they thought.

Its easy to rent at certain times - those times happen to be when they'd like to use their own place.

Renters who are strangers cause a lot more damage than they thought - and things disappear all the time.

Renters who are friends think they should stay for free or get a huge break.

They love their place, it is just far more expensive than they anticipated. They thought they wouldn't have any issues getting friends to share the expenses by booking the time they weren't going to use - but their friends aren't interested in pulling kids out of school either - or quite honestly - vacationing regularly in that location.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I personally wouldn't do this. If you have $100,000 in cash, you would probably get a much better return investing in something other than a ski condo. Owning a rental property is a pain. You could use just a small amount of that money to rent very nice hotel rooms for years and you won't be stuck with the condo when your kids lose interest in skiing.

 

[lovetheduck]

We own a ski condo. There are many plusses:
1. I don't have to pack. When we're going for the weekend we just go. All the equipment stays there, along with all the clothes.
2. Skiing is more relaxed. Since the condo is there and we have season passes we never worry about "is it worth it?". Sometimes we'll go to the mountain for 2 hours, which would never happen if we were staying in a hotel and paying by the day.(yes, I realize we're probably spending more but it just feels more relaxed.)
3. We don't have to go to restaurants for every meal.
4. We usually have friends come with us, which makes it much more fun.
and minuses:
1. My kids are getting tired of the same mountain every time (fyi- we live in the northeast and our condo is near a pretty small mountain that is 2 hours from our home. To get to the bigger mountains is a 5 hour trip)
2. As my kids get older they have more going on over the weekend.
3. Things break. Last season it was the heat, we didn't know until the night we got there, Christmas Eve. This summer it was the fridge.

Overall I'd say that we really liked it for the first 5 years we owned it. The last 2 were just ok. Now I'd love to sell it. I might feel differently if we were in a resort where renting was easy, but we're not. If you do go for it I'd say to just make sure that the resort you're in will take care of any problems that crop up. When there's nobody there to check on the unit you won't know the heat is out till your renters get there.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

We've got a place that we bought last year in Winter Park. We absolutely love having it. The kids are on the ski team, so we're up there every weekend from December through the end of March, and it's so nice to not have to leave either Friday night and rent a room, or ungodly early on Saturday morning. Like a PP said, it's also great because the equipment just stays up there, along with the ski clothes.

We enjoy going up as a family as well because we can bring our dogs, don't need to worry about boarding them or finding a dog sitter. We don't rent out our unit, the income isn't worth the hassle to us, and we consider the unit itself to be an investment. We did look at the HOA, to ensure that they are budgeting for future expenses, like new roofs, siding, etc. that they should be accounting for over time, rather than having a special assessment, and as the units are new (we're the first owners), there's plenty of time for those funds to be accrued.

Honestly, if you can affort it, and the mortgage payments aren't going to stretch your budget, I highly recommend it. As for renting, that's really up to you and your preference. We have a place on a lake as well, that we've rented, and it isn't nearly as easy as the ski place. We used a rental agent, but found that the income wasn't worth the hassle. In neither place did we worry about spending a lot of money to make sure the decor was latest and greatest.