Second/Vacation Homes

[plugboots]

Second/Vacation Homes

^^^ This is kind of what I was referring to when I said you need to predict the future. Old-time [emoji638]nd home owners are always complaining about too many people. Surprise!! You didn’t plan far enough ahead or whatever.
The other part is Core Shot said it was a sad ending. Kinda.
Half a million $ buys a shit ton of hotel room nights in some pretty cool places where some carhartt wearing motherfucker fixes the water heater etc.

[old goat]

The kind of small, ramshackle, uninsulated, unheated cabins and cottages--like the cottages my grandparents, aunts and uncles (but alas not my folks) bought on a lake in SE MI or the now-winterized fishing cabins still hanging on at Donner Lake--in other words, affordable, don't seem to happen anymore, at least not in places I'm familiar with. There are many factors--especially more wealth at the top competing for the remaining unbuilt sites and tear downs--but one of them is tightened building codes including energy codes, which certainly have increased the costs of building. Our house was built in 1975. It is no shack but it would not come close to meeting CA's earthquake codes. (An architect friend's first words on entering--You have no sheer wall.) The southfacing wall is almost entirely single pane glass, as are about half of the other windows. We did drop the cathedral ceiling to add 6 more inches of insulation. We've added several small additions and the difference in construction is dramatic. (If we do get the big one I expect the additions to hold the original house up.)

[TAFKALVS]

Second/Vacation Homes

The property I bought had one of those lake cabins you describe - built in the 1960s, A-frame, no insulation, painted plywood for a roof (with new layers added as is rotted out), sketchy wiring, and a collection of hoses that were strung to the lake that pumped in to a questionable 55 gallon drum for water. There’s no way you could build something like that here now, even in relatively permit free Idaho.

After romanticizing about remodeling it, I ended up putting it in a dumpster.

[yeahman]

Our family lake cabin in Minnesota was built in 1916. My sister owns it now that my dad passed away. It is rustic for sure but has had a hodgepodge of remodeling done over the years. Those old cabins in MN lake country are slowly disappearing.

[Grange]

I was talking with a local town official in northern WI yesterday and he said there is a trend where those old run down lake cottages are getting torn down and large garages with electricity, bathrooms, and sometimes larger windows are being put in it's place. The garages hold nice campers or RV's. It's a good way to have a "cottage" and keep property taxes low since the building is just a garage.

[Bunion 2020]

Time to change how property taxes are assessed in this country.

Primary residence=reasonable taxes (Whatever that means)
2nd residence=less reasonable taxes
anything beyond that, soak em.

Many if not all homes at places like the YC are not owned by a person. They set up a LLC and it owns the home and writes down everything possible. And don't get me started on the fabulously wealthy buying up ranches, building a big compound and still not paying shit for taxes because of the Ag exemptions.

[Mazderati]

Lots of locales already have some type of homestead exemption. I've never seen one that was a meaningful deterrent.

[AdironRider]

Time to change how property taxes are assessed in this country.

Primary residence=reasonable taxes (Whatever that means)
2nd residence=less reasonable taxes
anything beyond that, soak em.

Many if not all homes at places like the YC are not owned by a person. They set up a LLC and it owns the home and writes down everything possible. And don't get me started on the fabulously wealthy buying up ranches, building a big compound and still not paying shit for taxes because of the Ag exemptions.

There is a shitload of legal precedent limiting just how much you can soak a non-resident taxpayer. The State of Minnesota has a relative well written 2 pager about it:

https://www.house.mn.gov/hrd/pubs/ss/clssnonr.pdf

This is why you often see homestead exemptions (often with qualifiers based on age) or homestead vs. non-homestead tax rates for education taxes but not a straight up soaking of a non-resident property owner. There needs to be relative justification for the different rate.

Like Maz said, rarely does it make a huge difference. Non-resident tax payers are already a pretty sweet deal for most towns, where they pay in significantly more than they take.

[gravitylover]

I was talking with a local town official in northern WI yesterday and he said there is a trend where those old run down lake cottages are getting torn down and large garages with electricity, bathrooms, and sometimes larger windows are being put in it's place. The garages hold nice campers or RV's. It's a good way to have a "cottage" and keep property taxes low since the building is just a garage.

I like this idea. Then figure out a way to work in some of those ag exemptions and lease an acre for a telecom tower that pays enough to cover the whole place.

[old goat]

Time to change how property taxes are assessed in this country.

Primary residence=reasonable taxes (Whatever that means)
2nd residence=less reasonable taxes
anything beyond that, soak em.

.

Too easy to game. There are better ways--more progressive income tax, like we had in the 50s, tax capital gains as ordinary income, eliminate the carried interest rate, a wealth tax, I could go on and on. When the wealthy have less to spend on their houses the cost of housing will go down for everyone.

[yeahman]

I was talking with a local town official in northern WI yesterday and he said there is a trend where those old run down lake cottages are getting torn down and large garages with electricity, bathrooms, and sometimes larger windows are being put in it's place. The garages hold nice campers or RV's. It's a good way to have a "cottage" and keep property taxes low since the building is just a garage.

Interesting idea but I'd bet the resale value of the "garage" would be less than for the old rustic cabin.

[TWINS]

Pain in the ass.

5.5 hour drive to our condo.
Just under 10k a year operating expenses.
Probably use it 25 days a year.
Cheaper to rent.

[Dromond]

I've been fantasizing about the white salmon area in the Columbia River gorge. There are lots from under an acre in/near town up to dozens of acres with no utilities as you get further afield. Maybe around $10k per acre at the cheapest, but there are no $10k 1 acre lots, you're looking at 5+ acres. Not many listings under $100k. The 1 acre+/- lots close to town, maybe with views, are $400k or so

That seems like a good spot to have camping land with a shipping container, because it could all go up in a brush fire in a hot second. I once stayed a night at someone’s hipcamp east of White Salmon on some pretty, rural acreage. They said they had evacuated many times over the years, often on short notice.

[MyNameIsAugustWest]

There is a shitload of legal precedent limiting just how much you can soak a non-resident taxpayer. The State of Minnesota has a relative well written 2 pager about it:

https://www.house.mn.gov/hrd/pubs/ss/clssnonr.pdf

This is why you often see homestead exemptions (often with qualifiers based on age) or homestead vs. non-homestead tax rates for education taxes but not a straight up soaking of a non-resident property owner. There needs to be relative justification for the different rate.

Like Maz said, rarely does it make a huge difference. Non-resident tax payers are already a pretty sweet deal for most towns, where they pay in significantly more than they take.

Our town in Vermont just changed the tax rules based on homestead status. Previously, non-homesteaders paid less in school taxes because they didn't use the schools. Now, we pay 25% more than homesteaders. Don't think it will change any dynamics but this is how towns like Stowe were so tax-rich for so long. Also, the state pays part of homesteaders' property taxes. It's around 10% if IIRC.

[AdironRider]

Homestead rates in VT only affect school taxes I believe, and those are set by the State. There was a massive overhaul of that program (which has its own issues separate from the second home question), but it did have very large effects on certain towns. The State also has income requirements in terms of paying homestead tax rates, last I knew it was a sliding scale for households that make under about 140-150k.