
Finding Your Vacation Fixer Upper
24/04/2018Vacations are often one of the happiest times in life for a lot of people. Spending time in a different place is exciting, and you’ll get the chance to experience it without having to go to work or deal with major commitments. There are very few things which could make this time better. That is, of course, unless you’re thinking about buying your own slice of vacation, investing in property overseas. To help you out with this process, this post will be exploring a route which can be followed to secure a budget fixer upper in a country you love. While this will take some work, it will be worth it once you’re able to get paid to take vacations.
Starting With Some Travel
While you will have making money on the mind as part of this, it’s also very important to choose the right place for you. It’s impossible to make this decision without first having visited the area, leaving a lot of people will very few options but going for a bit of a travel. Of course, you may have already been to the destination of your choice, and won’t need to take this step. Visiting the location can still come in handy when you’re choosing the exact place, though, as this will enable you to go to viewings in person.
Finding The Right Company
Buying a property in another country won’t be the same process which you have to go through at home, and you will have to do some research to make sure you have all of the bases covered. Thankfully, there are loads of companies out there which can help you with this. International estate agents specialize in helping people to buy their dream homes overseas. If you choose one which is good at looking for holiday homes, you may even be able to get a better deal on your purchase. The best companies of all are those willing to go to auction for you, as this is by far the cheapest way to get your hands on a place, while also be one of the trickiest.
Choosing Your Place
Once you have a company behind you, you will start to find more and more properties which look like they fit the bill. You can’t be picky at this stage if you want to be able to secure a bargain. The place you buy may need to have a fair bit of work done to it, and you will have to do a lot of it yourself. For this reason, you should always avoid structural or heavy construction damage, as these could be expensive and time consuming to fix. A lot of people choose to learn some basic DIY skills before taking this sort of project on.
Along with looking for something which matches your budget and renovation abilities, it will also be a good idea to think about your needs for the new place. For example, if you have a family of five, you will need more than two bedrooms, and this will have to be considered during the purchase. To help you with this, it will be worth collecting all of the attributes of each of your most viable options. Using this information, you will be able to compare them directly, giving yourself a great idea of how well they could serve you.
Saving Some Money
While saving money should be nice and easy at the time of the initial purchase, a lot of people find themselves having to pay out loads during the renovation stage because they cut corners at the start. To avoid this, you will have to work hard to make sure that your work isn’t going to cost more than the money you save. Your real estate agent should be able to help with this. Even if you can’t visit, they will be able to survey the place, while also reporting back to you with their findings. This practically eradicates the risk of overspending.
Starting Work
Your estate agent will handle most of the hard work for you, and it will soon be time to get to work on the renovations. Before action can commence, though, you need to have a solid plan in place to make sure that the job goes smoothly. There are loads of mobile apps which can be used to help with this, and simply overestimating on the time you give yourself will make it a lot harder to over run. Services like builders renovation waste removal and storage will need to be found. You may also have to buy or rent some tools, but this will be best left until you get to your holiday home, as it will be pricey to fly with them.
Handling The Harder Jobs
There will be plenty of tricky jobs which come with your renovation work. A lot of people will want to move around wiring, change plumbing, and even remove partition walls from the place, shaping it into something new. Of course, though, you can’t attempt something like this if you don’t have the right skills for it. If you are in a country which doesn’t speak your language, you may struggle to find reliable workers. Thankfully, to get around this, this is another area which can be positively impacted by an app. Most places have their own tradesperson apps which are designed to help users connect with businesses.
Dealing With Deadlines
Of course, this is the part which a lot of people will struggle with; you will have to sacrifice a vacation to make this happen. Unless you’re retired or have an exceptional job, you will probably only have a couple of weeks to a month to handle this work, and this will cover your yearly leave. To make sure this doesn’t go to waste, you will want to ensure that all of the work is complete before you return home. Taking on too large a project or failing to give yourself enough time will always result in disappointment, leaving you with a place which can’t be used until you do more to it.
Enjoying It Into The Future
Once your work is complete, you will have something which very few people get to enjoy; a slice of your own vacation. You will be able to avoid awkward booking times and the costs of going to a hotel, while also enjoying the privacy of a homeowner. There are loads of services which can make this feel like a hotel, too. Food, cleaning, and even pampering can be found in most cities and towns around the world, and some places will be much cheaper for it than others.
Making Some Money Back
This isn’t just about making yourself an excellent place to go for a vacation, though, and there is another side which has to be considered. Throughout the year, your property will be empty for months, wasting the investment you’ve made. To get some money back from this, renting the place to vacationers will start to turn a profit if it is appealing enough. You should always do plenty of research before going in with the hopes of doing this, as each market is different, and it will be hard to predict how much you can make without the right research.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time you put into your budget vacation property. A lot of people spent a small fortune on a place like this, ignoring the options they have to make it much cheaper. Of course, though, what you save in money you will have to make up for in work.