Based on our experience, it’s no less expensive owning a home whether or not you’re actually there (assuming you don’t rent it). When not there you’re electric bill will be a little lower, and if you typically use a lot of water your base water and sewer charge could be a little lower than the actual usage rate. Besides that, there is no savings on homeownership, but there are added expenses such as a home watch service, having to pay someone to pull/spray for weeds, mow, spray for bugs, trim hedges, etc… since you won’t be there to do it yourself. And then there is the homestead property tax benefits that can save you real money, but you won’t be eligible for.

That being said, the worst part about being part time is knowing your home, that you are paying good $$ for on an ongoing basis, is just sitting there empty and you wish you could be there. And when you finally get to your home, there is always a lot of deferred maintenance work to be done, and ditto when you return to your other home. Bottom line, owning and maintaining multiple homes can begin to really wear on you over several years.

Unless you have an irrigation maintenance contractor, you should have a home watch service that is capable to get a sprinkler leak repaired. If you have a geyser in your yard from a broken sprinkler, how do you get it repaired from out-of-town?

When I'm out of town I set the sprinklers to run at 7am, my neighbors keep an eye out for geysers. They have identified 2 in the past year, I called a sprinkler contractor to address it.

I do something similar.
I split my sprinkler Tim Erin half for each zone.
If the zone needs to run for 30 minutes.
I run one zone for 15 minutes at 4AM and one for 15 minutes at 7AM.

What's the difference between yard maintenance and landscaping maintenance?

Lots of yard guys won't treat the rock/chip areas inside the landscape bricks for weeds, bugs, etc.

Some firms are one-stop-shops and do it all.

I know folks have good reasons for continuing to be snowbirds. It took only one year for us to decide that we hated it. Having an empty house 12 months of the year; (either FL or VA), the hassle of travel back and forth, closing up the homes etc. So we sold our house in VA and we're now fixing up our villa here in TV and very pleased with the decision. I admire all the snowbirds who seem to do it effortlessly. Some enjoy the drive up north, stop to visit friends, for example.

What he said ⬆️, it stinks to come back to a nicely mowed lawn and knee high weeds in the landscaping or brown palm fronds laying everywhere.

We are in the same situation and as soon as we sell our Northern home and vacation home we will be full-time here. In the future I only plan to have one home, here. We will spend a handful of months vacationing in the cooler areas across the North or Northwest during the hot months here.

I am not thinking of a pool home and since it will be me only probably just a two bedroom.

You can reduce you internet’s cost for 6 to 8 months while gone by using their vacation plan, cut my cost to1/2 of what I normally pay.

We own a rental villa in the village of Richmond. I keep detailed records. Annual expenses run about $14k. Includes taxes, bond, amenities, utilities, insurance, internet with streaming tv, and yard maintenance. It does not include a mortgage or a pool. It also doesn't include increased utility cost caused by the renters. The $14k is close to what it would cost if it sat vacant all year. I agree with the person who said that prices of everything are rising, even faster than inflation, so you might want to add some for future estimates. Bond payments vary greatly. You can view them somewhere on the CDD website. Your realtor should be able to provide the bond info by area.

I have my house completely automated: my refrigerator tells me the temperature of the freezer and refrigerator and if the doors are open, same for my gas range. Then all of my doors, garage doors, are controlled thru my phone so if I need to let someone in when I’m in Europe, no problem. My thermostat, lights, cameras, sprinkler system, water leak detection devices are all controlled by my phone/ipad. I get alerts sent to me if a door opens or somebody comes to my front door, I can talk to them. Also, I setup lighting routines when I’m gone so the house looks like somebody is home.

JB
 

Hi JB,

I have a 2 bed 2 bath home for sale in the lovely older part of TV near The Chula Vista Rec center. It comes furnished with a cool golf cart. Call me on 336 337 5885 if you are interested.

I think you could easily get by on around $5000 for the months you are not there.

Your largest cost would normally be electricity; I had an electrician come by to advise me as most friends told me that they left their air on at around 85 degrees. He said it’s perfectly fine to turn it off completely and even with the humidity being high in summer so long as you run it for a couple of days every 6 weeks or so you won’t have a problem. (my super friendly neighbor did that for me)

Good luck,
Lanie

Please send me you phone number and we can discuss this in detail. Thank you