Land Based Homes??

I'm still relatively new to the forum, but I had a question for those who live aboard.

How many of you maintain a fixed land based "home", be it a condo, townhome or house?

I've noticed a lot of the posts were people have sold their homes, belongings, etc., and moved aboard permanently, or I guess until they no longer want or are able to.

We have a paid for home, and in my mid 50's, the thought of starting over if the need were to arise, really concerns me. I really like the idea of living aboard, and I can see me doing it for months at a time, maybe a year or so if the route is right, but not sure I would want to do it forever. So how many of you actually keep a "dirt" address as a backup plan?

Hopefully this is not a redundant question or one to stupid to be responded to

Thanks,

OD

We maintain a home in AZ and as much as it would make sense to sell we are probably going to rent it out to any snowbirds for the winter, its tough maintaining a property that you are not at very much.

Our thought is that to replace a paid for house dpwn the road will be expensive and then you have to be careful you dont spend all your home money on your boat if you decide to sell the house.

We prefer the old adage of "not keeping all your eggs in one basket"

I am going to try and sell my car that sits in the garage in AZ, its a nice car and I really love it but not enough to keep it while we keep boating.

And no your question is not stupid or redundant, maintaining a home also helps your insurance premium as you are not deemed a liveaboard if you maintain a permanent residence.

Good luck

Thanks GWKIWI.
That was exactly the feedback I was looking for.
You hit every concern I had and addressed them well.

Anyone else want to chime in?

Thanks all.

OD

Our "plan" is to rent the house out through a property management agency I have a long standing relationship with. Our house is fairly modest so it lends itself well to that sort of thing. Frankly we would probably remodel the house after finished living aboard for a period of time anyway so whatever damage is done by renters is of no concern to us. I'm not a fan of concentrated eggs either, diversification and exit strategies are my stock in trade.

We sold everything. We may or may not get another house. I know we won't purchase again.

I have been interested in this issue for 15 years. My conclusion in asking everyone is that selling the house only works if it is strongly supported by the woman. Otherwise the cruising career is short. In the Caribbean about half the cruisers have land based homes and the other have are full time. Full time cruisers tend to have slightly larger boats than those who go home for months. Many of the full time cruisers have rented their homes rather than selling them for the reasons of staying in the real estate market, and also not losing a house they are comfortable in.

My suggestion is plan on cruising where you can get back to the house and then go back after 3 months and make a decision.

Marty

I doubt I would survive if I suggest to my wife that we sell the house.

I haven't lived aboard, but we moved to Canada for 5 years. This involved cutting back to 3 suitcases each. Rather than selling our house in Australia we reduced our belongings to what was really important, and stored it in half of the garage which we isolated with a temporary wall. Then rented out the house through an agent.

Upon returning, we didn't have to start over. We renovated, and replaced floor coverings (tax deductible) while the house was empty, then unpacked the garage. All too easy!

This approach avoided the hassle and costs of repurchasing a house, and storage and furniture moving costs. We ended up with renovated house and a garage that we could again fit two cars in. Something I hadn't been able to do for 20 years due to accumulated junk.

gwkiwi said:

I am going to try and sell my car that sits in the garage in AZ, its a nice car and I really love it but not enough to keep it while we keep boating.

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gwkiwi, can you tell me more about the car? We have a place in the NW corner of Phoenix and have considered buying an inexpensive car to go along with our inexpensive truck.

Cheapskate GFC

Had to chime in on this one. Lot of good points already, and one of the most important is getting the wife to buy in. Its different for everyone but our plan is this;
*Selling our 4 bdrm house and moving aboard fulltime, don't need a big house kids are gone and needed to downsize anyway.
*Selling everything we don't need and only keeping antiques and keepsakes that will fit in a 10X20 storage unit.
*Buying a modest yacht prob round 40 feet max,under 175K
*If for some reason things don't work out will buy a Condo on or near water and downsize boat a bit.
*Live aboard for 6-10 years while still healthy and sell boat and get RV
Everything is give and take, I had to convert from sailboats to a "trawler" to keep the wife happy and she agreed to get rid of 90% of clothes and shoes. Selling the house was a no brainer. I wish I was where you are, a lot of nice Ocean Alexanders out that way, cant seem to find what we want here on the East Coast........................................Brad& Michelle

We spend 50-70 percent of our time on the boat and have a place in the mountains. The Boss would not be comfortable without a land base. However the need to see grand children is almost always the thing that gets us off the boat.

I lived aboard for almost 23 great years.

Now we just cruise a month up north and a month in Fl .

2 Homes , UGH property taxes , but keeping a 33ft , a 23 ft and a 50 ft on my own property reduces the cost of boating.

A pied a terre here on a FL canal at a Hurricane Hole is not that !! expensive , under $100k for a place with a dock and a small building , or a house trailer.

UP the river 55 miles from FT Meyers , so it takes a day to get to the Gulf (2 days to the Atlantic) , but its cruising .

Off Duty said:

How many of you maintain a fixed land based "home", be it a condo, townhome or house?

SNIP

We have a paid for home, and in my mid 50's, the thought of starting over if the need were to arise, really concerns me. I really like the idea of living aboard, and I can see me doing it for months at a time, maybe a year or so if the route is right, but not sure I would want to do it forever. So how many of you actually keep a "dirt" address as a backup plan?

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I have no dirt though one box of autographed books is at my Kidlet's house in Pensacola. Seaweed is home.

HOWEVER I see you "really like the idea of living aboard, and I can see me doing it for months at a time, maybe a year or so if the route is right," and from your own words I would suggest that you not sell out. Boating is fine for me and perhaps you but at this stage cutting the cords to dirt would not be in my view a wise decision. It will be a lot easier to enjoy boating if you have a choice to return to your former life.

Anyway, that's my take on your particular situation. And as the fellows have stated "happy wife, happy life" ...

Good luck to you and yours.

We paid our home off several years ago & I can't ever see my wife not wanting to keep it. We are both retired, I spend most of the time from March thru November on the boat, she will come over every couple of weeks for a few days, 3 or 4 days at a time. She likes her garden, flowers & having green grass to tend to, me not so much. She has said that next fall will be a good time to point the boat south and spend the winter somewhere more pleasant than the midwest. If she does go with me we'll be back here for the holidays with family & then back to the boat & bring it back to the Mississippi in the spring. I'am just a lot more comfortable on a boat & really miss it when I'am home, like now I'am counting the days till spring & I can be back aboard.

GFC said:

gwkiwi, can you tell me more about the car? We have a place in the NW corner of Phoenix and have considered buying an inexpensive car to go along with our inexpensive truck.

Cheapskate GFC

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Its a 2007 Mercedes 320E Blue Tech Diesel fully loaded in immaculate condition and its not cheap, I am thinking around 19K I think, was over $60K new.

Kudo's to "Off Duty", great post. To sell or not to sell, the wife & I are agonizing over this very decision. It was always a part of our plan to sell the house when we moved aboard but as the day draws rapidly closer, we are having serious second thoughts.

Financially and logically it makes no sense whatsoever to keep it, it's too big, maintenance intensive and not suitable to renting out. Part of our problem is it is a very unique home that would be impossible to replace should we want to move back to land, the other hard part is that by virtue of size it has become a repository of family antiques and mementos that have been passed down for generations. In keeping with our plan I started selling this stuff off but it is getting increasingly difficult as I get down to our so-called prized possessions.

It is encouraging to know that so many have somehow gotten over these hurdles, as far as the stuff goes I'm thinking of renting a storage unit for the things we seemingly can't part with and see how things go. As to the house we are at an impasse and simply can't decide but I suspect common sense will eventually have to prevail.

I am thinking of one of those reverse mortgage type deals where they pay you a monthly amount and you get to stay in the house until death, has anybody gone this route? At a glance, it seems to me this might offer the best of both worlds and eliminates the need to sell anything. Thoughts anyone?

Capt Kangeroo

First question is in which country is your house. My comments pertain only to the United States.

Reverse mortgages usually have a provision that the note is called if you are no longer living in the house. While this clearly rules out any rental it may or may not stop you from cruising depending upon the language in the mortgage/note and how the lender interprets the clause. You would need to be careful as to how many months you will be out of the house or whether you are essentially moving out. Same is true with your home insurance which also typically has a no vacant house provision.

Marty

Bay Pelican said:

Capt Kangeroo

First question is in which country is your house. My comments pertain only to the United States.

Reverse mortgages usually have a provision that the note is called if you are no longer living in the house. While this clearly rules out any rental it may or may not stop you from cruising depending upon the language in the mortgage/note and how the lender interprets the clause. You would need to be careful as to how many months you will be out of the house or whether you are essentially moving out. Same is true with your home insurance which also typically has a no vacant house provision.

Marty

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An unoccupied home can be difficult to insure. For some reason unoccupied homes can cause spontaneous combustion.

I'm land-bound 93 percent of the time, so I'm keeping my land-based home.

We are full time liveaboards, and the only land based property we have is a rented storage unit. Kathy and I are not addicted to stuff, and prefer the scaled down lifestyle.

If and when we move back onto dirt, it'll be a small rented place. That being said, we have no immediate plans to do so- we're having too much fun doing what we are doing.

We just moved aboard full time. Have no land based home as we sold it over two years ago.

Even though we just recently committed, the past three months we spent 85% of our time on it.

We do have an office 2.5 blocks away where we store things and have a couch with a tv for that activity.

I would like to thank all of you for your individual insights into a matter that I thought might be ridiculous to even ask.

keep 'em coming!

OD

We talked about doing a live-aboard and run from Newfoundland Canada to Florida US in the fall and back in the spring but we decided to purchase an oceanside property. It is located far left ( red roof ) with the single car garage. Our wharf is the far left hook.

I prefer this right now rather than living on our trawler. I may someday do the trip south but the timing has to be right.

I prefer this right now rather than living on our trawler. I may someday do the trip south but the timing has to be right.

So all winter you shovel snow?

Hahaha no, haven't shovel snow for years. Love sitting in my side-x-side pushing it around though. Also love hitting the country on the sled so I would miss that big time.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Trawler

FF said:

I prefer this right now rather than living on our trawler. I may someday do the trip south but the timing has to be right.

So all winter you shovel snow?

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Come on, cut the guy some slack
I'm with you on the snow, but there are a lot of people I've met over the years, that prefer to live in colder climes. I'm not one of them, but to each their own

Ocean Breeze: I cab certainly understand your situation.
Previous to the trawler idea, we had been considering a waterfront condo here in Fla. Unfortunately, our insurance industry has shot a huge hole in the idea for now, doubling, tripling and more, the home owners insurance rates for waterfront homes and condos. These maggots have even taken the license to move the "area" into what have been traditionally/historically "no flood zones", and our idiots in Tallahassee (the Insurance Commissioner's Office) have allowed them to do it!

So for now, staying land locked and buying a boat is a better option for us.
Besides, if/when I get tired of the view or the neighbors (or vice-versa-LOL), I'll just up anchor and change it

In the end, we'll probably end up purchasing a smaller boat that we can handle and maintain easily and affordably (being a relative term). Our thoughts for now are something to use more as a portable condo, and do such runs as "The Loop", The Florida Keys, Sanibel/Captiva/Cabbage Key, the Bahamas and such. From there, who knows what life will offer up.

Based upon discussions with the Admiral to be, and the responses I've read here sort of solidify the decision, we'll very likely always maintain a land base. If for no other reason than it provides a bit of "stability" for the kids and other family. At this stage in life, it just makes sense. If I/we had made this decision 10-20 years ago, I'm almost certain that the result may have been different. Then again, it's hard to tell?

With the granddaughter growing up, there's a lot that we will want to be here for. As well, with dad not in the picture, I'm her role model, and I feel as though she needs me here, so I won't be venturing too far away for extremely long periods. I do plan on taking her with us during her spring and summer vacations, and letting her experience first hand, the boating life. She loves boats and the waterfront now as it is, so this is only a natural. As an aside, I'll be taking her to the boat show in St. Pete with us on Sunday.

Ok, enough of this babble....more responses

Thanks,

OD

For the folks that will be facing their First winter in snow country realize that snow shoveling is done with a narrow stiff push broom .

In places where the sea water hasnt frozen yet a good sized deck wash pump will help.

In really cold DO NOT brush the snow off it is good insulation .

A light snow will show insulation weak points , just observe where the snow melts off.

The MUD ROOM concept , some place where folks can shed heavy wet boots and clothing , with out bringing them below is great , if you have the room.

Here, winter usually means wearing a sweater. No snow.

The People vs Winter

I think living on a boat is nuts and would never part w a land home. However we are all livaboards. It's just a question of to what degree.
Many here in the US PNW spend the summer (or a significant part of it) up north. I've done some of that but I love my "stuff" and have no intention of dumping many things but now some must go.

We just bought a house a little smaller than the last and much smaller the the one before that. But now we finally have enough space (2 acres square) and I'm building carports and similar. Last fewdays it's been down in the low twenties and teens so most work has stopped. And in the cold weather the size of a house is golden.

I don't think we're going back to Alaska (just too far) but we plan on doing many week or two boat trips in Puget Sound and lower BC. We will be living aboard then but most of the time we'll be anxious to get home.

This is the Skagit River. We live about 2 city blocks to the left (north) of the river. We are a bit up in the mountains from Puget Sound.