Hopefully you won't get too many high and mighty people posting and lecturing you.
I understand where you are coming from. We sold our McMansion just before the housing bubble and watched as homes declined by 300k and more over a year or two. We realized the 255k we put into the MH would of been gone either way so it was nothing but a sunk cost to us at that point.
We have been FT for 6 years this May and love it. We have a permanent site which we use as a home base. We are young, well off financially and have a young baby.
People wonder and ask all the time why we don't have a house and can't fathom why we don't buy one. Well I broke it down for my inlaws the other day who wanted us to buy their home so they could FT in their RV (i'm not kidding).
250k for the house
$4,700 in property taxes
$2,400 in insurance
$600 a year for HOA (no benefits)
plus landscaping, water sewer, cable etc..
New roof in a few years and every 15 years
New AC since its 12 years old and likely to die in the next 5 years
Same with the water heater etc.
Compared to living in our RV:
$216 / mth which covers everything
HOA, water, sewer, cable, trash pick up, pool etc
$1,100 a year for taxes.
Now I realize we will have some maintenance on the rig but I'm fairly handy and it really is minimal overall. Especially since if we tried to sell the MH we would get nearly nothing for it and we would likely keep it regardless to travel.
So even if property values go up a reasonable amount which is hardly certain, they will get eaten up by just my taxes and insurance. Much less any large expenses or deductibles that crop up.
Is RVing a great deal? No.
For us though its not a great deal to really go back to a house. We have rental property and other investments, have zero debt and one of us works so the other can stay home with the baby. We live in a 5 star resort people pay $1,600 a month to stat at in season. We can travel when we want, do what we want and are happy.
That is all that matters. Is a house a better investment? Overall yes on average it is much better. Mostly because people can't save any money and a house, so long as you don't rape the equity you build, saves money automatically for you.
However if you are already in the game (rv) and love it the cost to stay in it really isn't that big a deal once you're there.
Do what you want and enjoy it. No reason to be a sheep. Try and be smart and you can always turn around your situation. Bankruptcy might be a good option to get things straight and sorted out and you can start fresh.
