After years of hard work, fun times, the enjoyment of nature and the simpler aspects of life, we sold our Pemberton house. It went to another couple with kids with the same thoughts and motorvations we had. Why, after all that effort, and with such a love for the place?
My wife had known for around 5 years that we needed to sell; it took her 2 years to even bring it up with me, and it took me 3 years before I would sadly accept it had to go.
There is no one reason why we needed to sell it - "it's complicated". So after a decade of experience with a holiday house let me present you with a bunch of bullet points in no particular order.
- Financials: Initially it's expensive and everything costs more than you thought. Careful budgetting is required, but remember, you are doing this yourself so your labour isn't a cost. Spend the money you saved on nicer stuff. You are probably going to spend as much money as if you bought something already built but needs maintenance, or outsourced the build, or did it all yourself. The difference being that you do it all yourself and it will be fancier. But whichever way you go, it will cost more than you think.
- Financials: The ongoing costs are also more expensive than you think. I had a loan for around $AUD100k(2015) on it, and adding on insurance, rates, power, all these things add up. It cost me around $1000/month to have it sitting there. The only way you can really make a holiday house work is if it generates some income when you aren't there. I initially had a problem with this - I was too emotionally attached to the place. I didn't want "strangers" "mucking up my house". Little things too like "They won't know how to prime the water booster pump". At the end I had friends and family staying there from time to time, I should have been doing that the whole while. It only took an A4 sheet of paper with some basic instructions on how to turn on the power, prime the pump, use the BBQ - it wasn't a problem.
- Financials: It was actually an easy accounting decision to sell. As mentioned, the place was costing me $1000/month to have it sitting there. There had been a housing boom in Australia over that time and the place was worth more than double what I paid for it. I could have started renting it out, short term or long term, in either case taking costs into consideration and ignoring the hassle (see "too emotionally attached") best case I figured it could pay for itself. However, if I sold it, and put the money into the debt on my other house, that would reduce my overall debt by $2000/month. That's very hard to ignore. $1000 out per month, or $2000 in (saved) per month.
- Maintenance: Once the house was more or less finished, there isn't much to do. Keep the bush down around the house, clean the gutters, that sort of thing. By the time the house was getting closer to 10 years old it needed more effort. Not to mention every time you went there it needed a good vacuum. Towards the end, if I went down there for a 3 day weekend, 2 of those days was working around the house.
- Distance: It was close to a 4 hour drive each way. My kids all started doing this from a young age so they were used to it and I never had "are we there yet?". But you can't really do a weekend there. Often I would get home on Friday, the missus and the kids were packed in the car, we'd head off and arrive at 10pm. Make the beds and wake up Saturday morning. It's hard work. But if you don't, you are losing half a day. We only ever went down if we could be there for a minimum of 3 days, 4 preferred. That reduced the amount of visits.
- Cost per visit: If you were to rent a cottage in the country for a weekend you'd be up for the cost of the rent. Sure, I didn't have to do that. But you are still up for the cost of the fuel, the meals and all the incidentals. A holiday house does not mean free holidays by any means, in fact, the cost of the rent is not the biggest factor.
- Variance: Do you like seeing something wildly different every holiday, or do you like seeing what shade of green the grass is each visit to the same place? I used to be the latter, but I started going to the former. We explored everything within an hour or two's drive, but hey, it's a big world out there, do you want to see it?
- It's in my control: One of the things that initially led us to build our own place was the numerous places we stayed at and they were all in various states of disrepair and ickyness. With your own place it's in your control; your own level of cleanliness, your own sheets and towels. (These days it's not so important to us...I think kids bring down your required level of cleanliness.)
- It's in my control: The flipside to the above is that everything that goes wrong is my problem. Like the time a branch took out the power as we arrived on a public holiday weekend. Like the time a fire kept burning weeks after we'd left it. Like the ants that had a fetish for power points and I had to keep replacing them. This is a subset of maintenance, but's it's that everything-is-my-responsibility (even if I was to get a contractor in.)
- Emotional attachment: Yep, that happened. It's just a house, but it took me a long time to accept that. Putting sweat blood and tears into anything will give you an emotional attachment - which might seem wonderful but it's unhealthy. Yes, I was a little obsessed for a while and I don't need to tell you that does not go down well with your spouse.
- Hanging on for the sake of hanging on: As per emotional attachment, but more of a "I have to keep justifying why I bought this place". It's okay. You didn't make a mistake. It was just what you needed at the time, that doesn't mean you need it forever.
- Kids: My kids who are all adults now still have fond memories of that place. It would have been great if they could have been there for just a few more years. My eldest daughter can still start a bonfire under any conditions, I taught her well. My youngest was only 7 when we sold the place, it would have been nice for her to have just a little bit more time there, and my son too, to develop an appreciation for the bush.
- Wife: did I mention that I was a little obsessed with it for a while there? My wife got to the stage where she did not want to go there anymore. She said each trip down there was simply cleaning the house, looking after young kids in a really small living area, preparing meals, while I did maintenance. That was no longer fun for her. In the last two years we would go down as a family for two weeks a year, and then I would do a 3 day weekend every few months just the kids and I, so I could do the maintenance (and clean house/feed kids - it was exhausting.)
Selling proved to be expensive in itself, it was around $AUD20k(2015) real estate agent fees - and selling in the country is challenging. It took a year to sell as it was an "unusual" house. A smallish cottage, 3 bedrooms one bathroom no garage, but fitted out amazingly well...it needed the right buyer. Who did arrive. They used it similar to us, but after just 5 years they sold it. I believe they were distressed sellers, all up I spent around $AUD200k(2004) and sold it for $AUD365k(2015). They sold it for $AUD350k(2020). The next owner later sold it for $AUD750k(2026)! I was suprised to hear that; sure they was a property shortage even in rural Western Australia - and there was new mining nearby - but that is a lot of money!
My wife and I still get sentimental about the place from time to time but very much consider that selling it was without a doubt the right move. I should have let family and friends stay there more often - I only did that in the last two years. We actually struggled having get-away holidays for a long time after that. It's like we forgot how to have a holiday away from home. But, ten years later, we started going down South again.
"Don't do it. I know you will anyway, we can talk about it again in ten years time."
One of last times there, relaxing on a chair by a fire with a drink in my hand next to my brother in law and son.