Is this the year?

Is this the year to allow emotion into decision-making?

Who didn’t feel sorry for the tourism sector in 2020? They were hit pretty hard, from the humblest of camping grounds to the luxury waterfront residences, from world-wide high end adventure tours to exotic overseas island destinations.

Most of us would love to get back out there, but this year it appears we are prepared to look at planning time away from home a bit differently.

Pre-COVID or now, most of us would love to get away several times a year but it is usually hard to justify the spend. Are you someone who has always gazed longingly at real estate agency windows and collected all the brochures every time you’re away from home? Of course, it would be much easier if you owned your own holiday home, wouldn’t it?

A holiday home is formally defined as ‘a building or piece of property used as a secondary residence for vacation purposes.’ Sounds awfully boring, doesn’t it!

Also known as a shack (often by South Australians and Tasmanians), a bach (by New Zealanders), a weekender, a cabin, a villa, a summer house, or perhaps a bothy, which is commonly left unlocked in Scotland and available for anyone to use free of charge.

Let’s assume we want a holiday, need a holiday, but we can’t get on a plane and travel overseas. However, we can do domestic travel, whether that be by air, road, or train. What if you own a holiday home? You have a place to go - take that flight, road trip or train journey - to somewhere other than your primary residence. For you, it’s no longer a pipe dream.

This year we are told that many of us are looking to combine working remotely within a holiday environment, with Zoom or similar our meeting room; and taking longer holidays to explore the surroundings outside working hours.

Agents are noticing increased interest in holiday home purchases. Perhaps the working-from-home scenario will stamp 2021 as the year of the rise in holiday home sales. It is also possibly a year where our lifestyle has become more important to us and we’ll allow a little more emotion into our decision-making when it comes to property investment.

decision-making?

We may accept that buying a holiday home may make both emotional and commercial sense. We may buy for our lifestyle – the regular weekend getaways with family and friends and welcome the rental returns for part of the year as a bonus.

What we want out of our holidays is personal but when investing in a holiday home, it is generally recommended to choose a location that is well-placed in relation to a good store of useful and popular amenities. For example, a top holiday home choice will be near features such as restaurants, shopping centres, tourist spots and great views. Being no more than a couple of hours drive from a major town or city, or close to an airport, will tick boxes.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a holiday home because it is just right for you personally if it still fits with your financial goals. And there is nothing wrong with buying an amazing property in a beautiful location and forgetting about whether it pays for itself or not, if you can afford it!

I live in an area that ticks all the boxes for a holiday home – walk to beach, walk to shops and restaurants, even public transport within a few minutes’ walk if you want to go further afield. Then there are the golf courses, parks and waterways.

The house next door recently became short term rental (STR) accommodation after almost a decade as a long-term renter. The reason? The family, who live about 115 kilometres or a one-and-a-half-hour drive away, decided they wanted to make use of what was once their primary residence as their own holiday home.

In the first four months as STR, they visited at least three times, staying one or two weeks at a time – and for the rest of the time it was a revolving door of short-stay holiday makers. To the credit of the owners and the STR company that manages the property, it has created relatively limited disturbance to our lifestyle.

In the past three months, almost one property a week has been snapped up quickly within five or six kilometres north and south of me. A good number of these have been purchased for holiday homes by people, who I think, are buying with their hearts as well as their heads. MATT ROFFE, RE/MAX KRG

What features would you look for in a holiday home?

As with any real estate investment, I’d be looking for something with an upside. Holiday homes are often viewed as a luxury purchase made with a focal point on lifestyle. I would shift the focus towards income.

With the rise of Stayz and Airbnb, plenty of holiday homes have been more profitable than regular investments in the past 12 months. People looking to get away have been visiting country and coastal towns in droves. If you are looking to buy a holiday home, buy somewhere no more than a few hours’ drive of a major city or hub.

Within Sydney, two hours’ drive in every direction offers lifestyle options, be it coast, vineyards, mountains or bush, to suit every purchase budget. Being two hours away allows people to come for the weekend, short stay or holiday. It also prompts you to finish work on a Friday and be ‘home away from home’ in time for dinner.

If you could buy totally with your heart, where and what would you buy?

Las Vegas. Need I elaborate? Whenever I visit, I am always amazed at the houses that money can buy in Las Vegas.

Who wouldn’t want a mega mansion in the Las Vegas desert? Flights are cheap and restaurants are second to none.

With a purchase price of approx. $1,000,000 - $1,250,000 AUD, Airbnb returns are anywhere from $1000 per night. Not bad for the air-conditioned capital of the world.