Quote:
Originally Posted by garysanfran
What a PITA that must be. Last minute rental and they have to vacate and remove all valuables? Where do they keep copies of their tax returns? Gotta remove them! Empty closets, etc. Just to pay your taxes...I hope where they live is worth that effort.
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They have it setup such that it's ready to rent all the time. They live simply and travel light. They have no sentimentality about the condo or much of anything in the condo, it's like a hotel room to them. I am pretty sure they can easily afford the taxes and such without renting, it's just a nifty way to make a few bucks and let someone else pay the bills.
FWIW, my wife and I do something similar. We sold our (empty nest) house and the vast majority of of large belongings in Summer of 2020 and moved aboard our boat in Hampton Beach. We moved into a rented Hampton Beach Condo in Fall 2020 and moved back to the boat in Spring 2021 right after we bought the condo we were living in. We rented out the condo on AirBnB the entire time we were on the boat in 2021 and are doing it again this year (lots of repeat customers are booking it up already). It worked out really well for us and the rentals pay the vast majority of our condo bills for the year. We have a property manager that takes care of everything to do with the rentals.
Like our friends, we have no sentimentality about the condo; it's just a place to to live and the few valuables we have here go in storage or on the boat while the condo is rented out. Living like this is certainly not for everyone, but we are have the time of our lives. No more snow to manage, no firewood to process, no well pump to deal with, no roof to replace, no septic system to maintain, no lawn to mow, no leaves to rake, no garden to weed, no mulch to spread etc. We just pay a trivial monthly HOA fee and everything is taken care of.
Maintaining and improving the boat absorbs a lot of my time, but it's a labor of love and nowhere near as time consuming as the house and yard were. Maintaining and improving the boat is also giving me a tremendous knowledge of all the systems on board and I'm certain that will come in handy when the boat inevitably needs repair in some exotic location.
My wife and I both think last Summer was the best Summer of our lives. Releasing the lines and heading out for a week or two of Summer cruising on the New England coast is the best. The only "regret" while cruising was that we were missing out on the shenanigans with friends at the marina while we were gone. Fortunately, by the end of the season, said friends were joining us on their own boats. Anchoring for a few days in a beautiful harbor with a group of like-minded friends in a flotilla is wicked fun. We all use our dinghies to go to shore or to gather on each other's boats and have dinners together.