As I get closer to fulltiming, I have been looking around the area where I live (Shreveport, LA) at land and smaller houses. I am trying to decide on buying a small plot of land where I can construct a parking space for my RV when I am back in the area. My daughters, son and grandchildren all live here and I know I will be spending at least 2 months a year here (Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Does anyone here have a similar situation? Has it worked out for you? I was wondering if it would save me money in the long run versus paying rent for those time periods.

IMHO-- any thought of maintaining some sort of home base would strictly be a decision based on your pecular situations.  Have goods friend who have gone both ways.  Some have divested themselves of everything and enjoyed the on the road full timing.  Then at some future date they have re-established a home base for various reasons. Doesn't mean that they didn't like the full time experience, just means that people and their priorities change.   Again some have maintained a home base and relied on family members to use or maintain . 

Remember life changes may cause  you to alter the best laid plans.  Again circumstances/cost may dictate. In our case, we built in a very nice section of town that has maintained its value/appeal. Being a fair sized brick, A/C  house,  built in the early 50's for $18K and by good fortune was paid for in 3 years, the house is now valued at about 15 x that $$$.  Senior exemption/freezes have been in affect for 21 years so tax cost is less than $1K a year. 

With the various time outs for family or health reasons it was a good decision for us. It allowed us to maintain relationships with close friends/activities we have cherished for 50 - 60 years.   We still were able to enjoy the life style 200 to 300 days a year and have a place of respite when needed.

good luck in "your" decision what ever it will be, nothing is cast in concret

 

john       

-- Edited by jomago at 12:54, 2007-01-14

Don, if you are going to spend that much time there every year it would probably be a good idea to have a place. It's not really about the cost but the convenience of having a place to stay.

Tmcblane gives good advice in "It's not really about the cost but the convenience of having a place to stay." Here’s another thought. Are there any "ownership" campgrounds in the area? That might be a way to 1) eliminate maintenance of a home/lot and 2) earn some rental income while you are not using it. Just a thought.

That's a good idea. We feel that the trailer is our home now and all the stuff we use every day is right here.
It would be troublesome to move what you need into another home for a few months use, and then have to move it all back. Simpler to park your home where the family is for the time you need, and then rent the space out.
Fred

I worked on this issue hard for more than 10 years and each time I went through the math, I could never get it to come out. I really would like to have had a site like you are describing so I tried many times to make it work out. Some of the things I considered were as follows:

1. Initial cost of purchasing land and building the RV site.
(This will vary depending on where you put down or you may already own property and whether there are utilities already available.)

2. Taxes.
(Will again vary on where)

3. Upkeep on the property
(Mowing of grass, etc.)

4. Insurance.
(You need to protect yourself with some liability insurance just in case someone gets hurt on your property, and to protect your investment.)

5. Utilites.
(Initial hook ups can be very expensive if the site doesn't already have stuff like water, electric and sewer services. There may also be minimum monthly charges even though you may not be there. If you pick a place without city utilities you will have to put in a well and a septic system. These items aren't amintenance free.)

6. Concern about possible missuse and/or vandalism.
(a concern for me when we weren't around)

When I compared all of that to the cost of a couple of months at an RV park, well suffice it to say we do not have a home base site. Every time I went through the process, I found that the taxes alone were close to a couple of months at an RV park. It wasn't just the cost either. Maintianing the site, mowing, raking leaves, etc, just aren't what I want to spend my time doing. If it were, we probably would not be full-timers.

Of course what is right for you is what counts. I just wanted to mention what we went through when considering the same option and why we made the decision we did. We wish you happiness in whatever you do!

Some times this is just the right thing for YOU to do.

While we have traveled extensively for almost 30 years, our full time "time on task" is much shorter. However, the first thing we did was to build a storage garage with a couple of sets of full hook ups.

We built on land we purchased almost 13 years ago. Granted, it the most expensive garage I have heard of, it is an anchor for us.

We decided that we could not be as cavalier about discarding stuff as some. We have collected pottery and Hopalong Cassidy collectibles for 20 years; plus Star Wars, plus Star Trek, plus Robert Heinlein books, plus every Louis Lamour, and Tony Hillerman, and John Sandford and Randy White and so on. We were not going arbitrarily discard these items. I have enough 1st editions to ...

Plus it is a place where we can work on things. All my power tools and my wifes many, many hobbies have found a home base too. When we collect items on the road we have a place to drop them. There is a place for a hot rod and room to rebuild it (a new towd??).

We do stay on our lot, at 8500 feet, in south central Colorado several months a year. We are not sure that that is where we will locate when we tire of "full timing" but, land is an investment. Taxes are about $600 a year and electric, when we are not there, is about $20 a month ( we heat the storage ).

Of course, your mileage WILL vary, I am sure what we have is not for everyone. I am sure Howard would think we are crazy but ...

Mike

This questiion can be to ones own liking..I guess.  When we decided to full time it in our fiver' a home in the background was not to be.  That is what full timing is all about.  However, since we love New Mexico (which is considered our home base) our UPS store where our mail goes is there plus some of our collectibles are stored there....owning land is an investment and an expense you do have to maintain it plus considering taxes.  In our case this is something we want no part of right now in our lives.

southwestjudy & Bob & 2blackdogs

We found our stick house had a giant bungee cord attached to it, the further we got from it the harder it pulled us back.  Selling it cut our expenses in half and after 5-1/2 years of home ownership we about broke even after accounting for taxes, fees, and upgrades even though it looked like we made a pile of money on the surface.

We travel all across North America and the only constant is we will be in Western Washington State some time around May and/or June for doctors and such.  That happens to be where we sold the house so we are not in the mood to buy something in that area again.

Your situation might be different.  For us it is very freeing to not own real estate.  We haven't found anyplace we want to live all year.

In many cases if you want to stay long term somewhere fairly often you can get a good deal on monthly rent including utilities. 

-- Edited by bjoyce at 11:33, 2007-01-16

-- Edited by bjoyce at 11:35, 2007-01-16

Hi Delaine and Lindy,

Checked out your home base....... WOW. Life is Good. GBY

Just an update....... my investment advisor suggest that I do not sell my house and buy an RV,  she says the depreciation will tear my nest egg apart. I guess that is why they call them advisors.  I think if I sell my house and safely invest the equity then if I want to get into another house when I'm 90 then I can. I may not have all my nest egg, but I will worry about that when I am 100!  .............. Doncat

About 5 years ago we began selling off our modest real property.  We wisely retained about 1  1/2 ac.(  now it would be unaffordable to buy back in).  For next few years  we 3/4 timed to fulltme.  After flirting with fulltiming and 3/4 timing we opted for both RVing and stickhouse lifestyle.  We built a small cottage (1000 sq.ft)on the piece of property we reserved and spend 2-3 months a year there (around holidays, near family), 6-7 mos. volunteering in the Northwest, and 2-3 mos. just kicking back in some warm, low spot.

If for whatever reason we are fortunate that we can change this schedule to anything that fits our pistol.  Homebase concept is  just one of several ways to enjoy this time of our lives.Everyone need to make their own assessments by experimenting, questioning your new friend on the road and certainly using this forum. 

Works for us.

Keep on traveling,

Larey & Rita

 

I am a charter member of the Packrats of America so I don't think I could ever give up full time storage like lots of people do. On the other hand, it is hard to pay the high taxes in Indiana just to have a place to store stuff and visit once in a while.

My ideal solution would be to move my existing house/lot to SD. I figure the savings in the personal property tax on the camper would alone pay for the increase in heating bill. In the real world this move is not without complication. It looks like SD has advantages as far as a destination in that they apparently don't give you a lot of hassle about exactly which block you live on in order to become a resident. I moved 20 miles within Indiana and it took me three trips to get enough documentation to change my address, regrestation, etc. Of course, someone with a brighter light bulb could probably have made it with one trip.

It looks like a slow migration is in order. Those of you between IN and SD will probably get used to seeing the bus traveling back and forth over several YEARs. I will be the one with the old Massey Ferguson tractor as a toad!

Lee     know several people were from various other states that belong to "ESCAPEES" and use the LIVINGSTON TX address as their TX address for residence .   As iI understand it this is just a box No.   Don't know all the info, but maybe some others on here do. 
Just a suggestion.

Yes, I know about Livingston and we are SKPs, but we don't want to move there until we need the CARE. I spent some time in TX at my Uncle's property at Ft Hood long ago and more recently we spent three weeks in the back country of Big Bend tracking bats. We even bought a little flag, but somehow we just don't feel like Texans. Our bus lived in TX before coming to live with us. That was 5 years ago and there are STILL pine needles in it!

There are boxes in SD also and that would help during a transition, but we are looking at a place to really move to. A box would also come in handy during Jan and Feb because SD might be nice most of the time but I don't have to go overboard and freeze my ** off in Jan and Feb.

Also, one of the top items on my list is NO INCOME TAX. I don't realy care that much about the $$, I just hate all the extra paper work and hassle. (See Howard's tax rants) That rules out a lot of places.

I am still thinking and listening to what everybody else is doing. Maybe we could get Howard to do a study and rate the States on various criteria

-- Edited by LeeB at 16:30, 2007-02-04

We have given this a lot of thought. We thought about keeping the house to come home to, but there are the taxes, maintenance (grass cutting, etc.), utilities, insurance and on and on...that's out.

Then I thought about building a "barn-domenium" which is simply a large barn or storage building. I figured we could design it so that we could pull the rig into the barn and convert one side of the storage into living quarters and the other side for storage of "stuff" that we don't want to take on the road with us. Again, we would have the taxes, less for maintenance because it would be out of the city area, so grass would not have to be maintained as much, utilities, insurance and so on....that's out too.

We have decided to use one of our kid's home address as ours. That way, we can pay them for mail forwarding-bill paying will be done by computer while on the road-which will give us a good reason to return to see the grandsons.

We will be parking at one of our children's home about 4 months out of the year to re-fuel our budget. They live in the country and have plenty of room for our 39ft 5ver. We pay a small part of their electric and water and help with their kids some. We have our own storage barn that we keep those things that we just can't part with...that we have not looked at in years...go figure. When we have replenished our deisel allowance we will pack up, wave good-bye and we will be gone for 8 months. No Taxes...No yard work...No worries...Live Longer...Life is great. Sherri and Joe