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View Poll Results: If you have gone cruising (past or present), did you sell your land home?
Yes 57 43.18%
No 75 56.82%
Voters: 132. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 22-03-2019, 10:51   #16
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

We have been living onboard cruising full time for 7.5 years, but we have just bought a house and will be moving to part time cruising/living onboard. Why? Another member commented in another thread , the subject of which was "how long do people cruise full time", that the average was about five years, because after that the boat requires too much maintenance to do so. Well in our case that proved to be just about right. After five years we have found that we spend about 6 months a year in a marina or boatyard fixing the boat. Quite frankly the process of living on a boat while doing significant repairs just is not working for us anymore. Living in a partially disassembled boat, sometimes on the hard is just too much trouble. We bought a house on a canal and the boat will be in the back yard. It has a nice workshop and storage shed where I can work on things and get stuff out of the way when I am working on the boat. There is a nearby boatyard where I can have it hauled if necessary, but at night I will be able sleep in a bed, not have to crawl over disassembled boat parts, and not have crawl down a ladder and walk 200 yards to the restroom to pee in the middle of the night.
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Old 22-03-2019, 11:34   #17
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

There’s definitely no ‘right answer’ here. It’s all very individual. Pros and cons on all sides. I’m just curious what CFers actually do.

Bill, your question: "how long do people cruise full time”? would be another excellent one to pose. I’ve not heard this 5-year average before. Makes sense I suppose, but it would be interesting to actually ask people here.

Another interesting question for CFers would be how many here actually consider themselves to be cruisers. And by cruisers I mean folks who live and travel on a boat for extended periods (many months) each year.
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Old 22-03-2019, 11:46   #18
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Land home, yes or no?

We sold our land home.
Why? Well for one reason it was destroyed by a renter when I was stationed in Germany, it took a year and tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild. That would never be recovered with rental income, and yes, it can happen to you too.
Secondly because it was not an appreciating asset, not where we lived anyway, houses and land are depreciating still.
It was especially not appreciating when one included the yearly taxes, you only think you own your house, stop making those yearly tax payments and see what happens.
$5,000 a yr taxes, and they never go down, then of course add in cost of upkeep.
Third reason was we sold it for more than it was worth to a Pipeline company that wanted the land (100 acres) to install a compressor station for their new pipeline, we got lucky, those offers are rare indeed.

Of course we still have the money invested and plan is to buy another house, I’m thinking not in the US once we stop cruising. Financial plan was five years, I hope to cruise and live on a boat for longer than that.
Money I am receiving on the investments far outstrips what I would have gotten from keeping the house and land.
That is of course location specific, some places you would be a fool to sell.
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Old 22-03-2019, 12:19   #19
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

Quote:
Originally Posted by apirate View Post
While the downsizing process wasn't easy, it was extremely freeing.


Getting rid of so much unused basically junk was without doubt the most liberating experience of my life. And with it lessening the control the advertising industry has over you when you live in that "real" world. Maybe that had a bearing on getting rid of the house, I really didn't want any part of that world any more. Don't miss it.
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Old 22-03-2019, 12:23   #20
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

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I just celebrated my 31st anniversary. Our boat is our home (but we don’t live on it year round … yet).

Ken, the question is simple. It’s not trying to answer the “why” question. It’s not trying to judge what is right or wrong.
Mike, I don't think there is a right or wrong. The circumstances would vary so much on both the sell and don't sell side that it is almost useless to make generalized conclusions. In our case with the Toronto real estate market we did very well not selling.
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Old 22-03-2019, 12:26   #21
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike OReilly View Post
There’s definitely no ‘right answer’ here. It’s all very individual. Pros and cons on all sides. I’m just curious what CFers actually do.

Bill, your question: "how long do people cruise full time”? would be another excellent one to pose. I’ve not heard this 5-year average before. Makes sense I suppose, but it would be interesting to actually ask people here.

Another interesting question for CFers would be how many here actually consider themselves to be cruisers. And by cruisers I mean folks who live and travel on a boat for extended periods (many months) each year.
You’ll never get an accurate representation to your how long question. When people quit cruising, they also quit cruisersforum.

To your last question, cruising means different things to different people. Some never go anywhere, and instead use the site for technical information.
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Old 22-03-2019, 13:03   #22
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

Hi Mike,

Simple question, simple answer: sold all... except for some junk which has been languishing in what was originally cheap storage, but has now cost us too damn much to consider without tears!

And yes, we consider ourselves cruisers, having been doing so full time for nearly 33 years. Ken believes that his part time methodology is best, I don't!

An aside: while we might have eventually garnered more money by renting out the house, we have not had to worry about maintenance, renter damage, crooked property managers, bushfires, neighborhood degeneration, poor occupancy and (most important), having to return to California to deal with any or all of the above problems. We've seen all too many cruisers lives and voyages disrupted by such issues. I'm glad that we did what we did.

And now that we are considering the dreaded life after cruising issues that must come to us all, we are free to consider living ashore anywhere we want to, and are not driven to return to a place that is definitely not "home" any more!

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Old 22-03-2019, 13:15   #23
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

Quote:
Originally Posted by a64pilot View Post
. . . Secondly because it was not an appreciating asset, not where we lived anyway, houses and land are depreciating still.
It was especially not appreciating when one included the yearly taxes, you only think you own your house, stop making those yearly tax payments and see what happens.
$5,000 a yr taxes, and they never go down, then of course add in cost of upkeep.
Third reason was we sold it for more than it was worth to a Pipeline company that wanted the land (100 acres) to install a compressor station for their new pipeline, we got lucky, those offers are rare indeed.

Of course we still have the money invested and plan is to buy another house, I’m thinking not in the US once we stop cruising. Financial plan was five years, I hope to cruise and live on a boat for longer than that.
Money I am receiving on the investments far outstrips what I would have gotten from keeping the house and land.
That is of course location specific, some places you would be a fool to sell.

One tip about real estate -- values are driven primarily by two things -- population increase, and the balance of assets vs. money in the economy. Don't invest in real estate in a geographic location which is losing population. Worldwide, people are moving to cities, and from small cities to capital cities, and away from the country and away from small towns.
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Old 22-03-2019, 13:40   #24
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

I sold the house. Even if (when) we get tired of the boat why would we still want to live in the NE USA???
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Old 22-03-2019, 14:10   #25
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

Mr. cthoops and I sold our house. We lived in a high tax town in a high tax state. The only people experiencing large appreciation in property values in our area were those who bought at least 20 years ago before the run up in prices. Frankly, we have no interest in ever owning a house again. For us it’s not worth the cost or the maintenance.

Everything we own is on the boat, save for a few small boxes of sentimental items in a relative’s attic. We like knowing that literally everything we own serves a purpose or brings joy. Someday when we’re finished cruising we’ll likely switch to an RV which will bring its own set of adventures. This works for us, but doesn’t appeal to everyone. That’s ok too.
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Old 22-03-2019, 14:24   #26
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

I have been living aboard since 1990 (except for one year), and - yes, I sold my house and everything except what I brought aboard. When I met and married my second sailor man I agreed to live aboard his boat but didn't want to do so in a marina (I was still working for a few years before we headed out cruising). So we acquired a small bit of deep water property off the Chesapeake Bay and built a dock w/utilities. Family and friends were afraid to stay aboard overnight ('what if it sinks?'), so we eventually built a garage with apartment overhead for them; we continued to live aboard 'Painted Skies' at the dock. Since we sailed away to Australia in 2008 the garage/apartment has been a great home base for us when we need to renew visas. We rarely stay more than one month a year at the apartment as we typically head out cross-country or to Canada/Alaska in our campervan.

So, there is no YES or NO in my situation - but rather, YES, but it didn't take.
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Old 22-03-2019, 14:58   #27
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

We are future cruisers so I didn't vote but would have ticked keep the house.

I'm not sure if full time is for us. I like the idea but I think we are going to be part timers so keeping the house is looking like how we will start off.
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Old 22-03-2019, 15:21   #28
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

Kept our house
Extra couple of grand a month in the kitty when rented.
A place to fall back to later if needs be.
An asset that is going up in value and we don't have the shock of having to buy back in at a latter stage
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Old 22-03-2019, 15:41   #29
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Land home, yes or no?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockhead View Post
One tip about real estate -- values are driven primarily by two things -- population increase, and the balance of assets vs. money in the economy. Don't invest in real estate in a geographic location which is losing population. Worldwide, people are moving to cities, and from small cities to capital cities, and away from the country and away from small towns.


That statement has been true for at least a Century.
However I cannot and will not live in an Urban area, I despise it.
Drove me Ape nuts being in Atl when the kid was in the hospital, once he started getting better.
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Old 22-03-2019, 15:52   #30
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Re: Land home, yes or no?

We're in cruising no man's land on this whilst the boat gets prepped for our new lifestyle. We have the big house, but stopped living in it 3 years ago and moved into the attached self contained flat and started AirBnB'ing the house. We actually got rid of most of our stuff when our daughter and her family rented the house for a while before we switched to AirBnb. We had to re-furnish the place in preparation for AirBnb and did this very cheaply using a somewhat novel approach.

Having survived a reasonably severe cancer scare a while back, the importance of having a land base available as a fallback, especially in the early days is a pretty important consideration, imo. We'll keep the place as a hedge for 6 to 12 months, and maybe also use our flat to store our stuff we don't want to let go just yet. Then we'll sell regardless because our house was great for raising a bunch of kids, but not so great for just two of us to rattle around in. We'll either buy a place that maximises return on investment, or buy that something that will suit our desired land based lifestyle should we decide to return to land.
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