Are we insane?
Hi, everyone! Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this post and we hope to gather some good feedback with your responses. We have about 60 days in which to finalize our decision making process.
We live near Gilroy, California, relocated here in early 2017 from the Sacramento area; the job opp we moved down to the area is not working out as the company is going bankrupt. We are not waiting on the filing and have decided to relocate back to the Sacramento area, she is returning to the government sector and I the same; house goes on the market in mid/late February. So, theoretically the cash flow will be reliable again and if we decide on the house the Sacramento housing market has not gotten red hot, yet.
BUT…..there is a caveat to our plan. My wife is finishing her Nurse Practitioner program; grad date December 2019. California is near the bottom in regards to being NP friendly and we have found pretty much the Inter Mountain West to be NP friendly with the exception of Cali. Upon graduation we will be leaving Cali relocating to one of those states.
So our scenario has us determining if: we should purchase a home knowing it will be back on the market in two to three years, rent a house, or go ahead now and jump into full time RV’ing. We have some camping experience both in tent and fifth wheel with family so it is not a completely foreign world to us.
Key information: Just the two of us, two small dogs and a cat. Not quite to the 55 and older discount club. We will have to purchase truck and fifth wheel (largely financed, some down payment money) as the current truck (2004) won’t pull anything over ~24 footer. Thinking TH as we have two Hogs we love to ride. We are quite familiar with the Sac area as we owned a home near there and commuted for five years prior to moving south last year. Reliable internet connection is a must as part of her schooling is online (this could be a biggie).
Budget for housing: Purchasing and/or renting will put us in the $2500-3000/month plus utilities arena; renting is very challenging as we have two small dogs and a cat. A good reference for us is five years of data living in the area until 2017: avg. /mthly housing expense to include utilities, not internet, typically $3000 with a $2274 mortgage (includes Taxes/Insurance).
We think buying a house would carry the largest risk of all in that we might need to “bring our checkbook” to the closing when we sell due to the short time we have owned it. The Sac market should be good in 2020, but …… Renting is extremely unattractive for two reasons: difficulty of finding a house that allows that many pets and completely throwing away our money for someone else’s equity.
The full time aspect for us is intriguing in that we can “scout” the potential states, essentially those west of the Plains states and not have to make arrangements for a pet sitter, pet friendly hotels, stay an extra day, etc. Our eventual plan in 2020 will be to purchase land where we are going and build a house; having a fifth wheel would make it very convenient to live in while we build; taking into account climate and time of year.
Being stationed in Tokyo while AD we lived in an apartment not a whole lot bigger than some of the TH models we have visited, so downsizing has already been done once.
In our case I am not shy about saying “we don’t know what we don’t know”. Specifically, we are asking: Is our reasoning sound; are we out of our minds? Are we examining the right costs, can a full time setup be had with the payments, site rent, utilities and be at or below the housing average as mentioned above? How receptive are parks to long term tenants, I have found researching there are some that won’t allow a stay of more than 28 days. Those of you familiar with the parks in the Sacramento area, how hard is it to consistently find a spot; she being retired AD we have access to the Fam Camps at Beale and Travis AFB. We do have a few more questions, but I believe we have taken up way too much space in this post. Thanks.
We live near Gilroy, California, relocated here in early 2017 from the Sacramento area; the job opp we moved down to the area is not working out as the company is going bankrupt. We are not waiting on the filing and have decided to relocate back to the Sacramento area, she is returning to the government sector and I the same; house goes on the market in mid/late February. So, theoretically the cash flow will be reliable again and if we decide on the house the Sacramento housing market has not gotten red hot, yet.
BUT…..there is a caveat to our plan. My wife is finishing her Nurse Practitioner program; grad date December 2019. California is near the bottom in regards to being NP friendly and we have found pretty much the Inter Mountain West to be NP friendly with the exception of Cali. Upon graduation we will be leaving Cali relocating to one of those states.
So our scenario has us determining if: we should purchase a home knowing it will be back on the market in two to three years, rent a house, or go ahead now and jump into full time RV’ing. We have some camping experience both in tent and fifth wheel with family so it is not a completely foreign world to us.
Key information: Just the two of us, two small dogs and a cat. Not quite to the 55 and older discount club. We will have to purchase truck and fifth wheel (largely financed, some down payment money) as the current truck (2004) won’t pull anything over ~24 footer. Thinking TH as we have two Hogs we love to ride. We are quite familiar with the Sac area as we owned a home near there and commuted for five years prior to moving south last year. Reliable internet connection is a must as part of her schooling is online (this could be a biggie).
Budget for housing: Purchasing and/or renting will put us in the $2500-3000/month plus utilities arena; renting is very challenging as we have two small dogs and a cat. A good reference for us is five years of data living in the area until 2017: avg. /mthly housing expense to include utilities, not internet, typically $3000 with a $2274 mortgage (includes Taxes/Insurance).
We think buying a house would carry the largest risk of all in that we might need to “bring our checkbook” to the closing when we sell due to the short time we have owned it. The Sac market should be good in 2020, but …… Renting is extremely unattractive for two reasons: difficulty of finding a house that allows that many pets and completely throwing away our money for someone else’s equity.
The full time aspect for us is intriguing in that we can “scout” the potential states, essentially those west of the Plains states and not have to make arrangements for a pet sitter, pet friendly hotels, stay an extra day, etc. Our eventual plan in 2020 will be to purchase land where we are going and build a house; having a fifth wheel would make it very convenient to live in while we build; taking into account climate and time of year.
Being stationed in Tokyo while AD we lived in an apartment not a whole lot bigger than some of the TH models we have visited, so downsizing has already been done once.
In our case I am not shy about saying “we don’t know what we don’t know”. Specifically, we are asking: Is our reasoning sound; are we out of our minds? Are we examining the right costs, can a full time setup be had with the payments, site rent, utilities and be at or below the housing average as mentioned above? How receptive are parks to long term tenants, I have found researching there are some that won’t allow a stay of more than 28 days. Those of you familiar with the parks in the Sacramento area, how hard is it to consistently find a spot; she being retired AD we have access to the Fam Camps at Beale and Travis AFB. We do have a few more questions, but I believe we have taken up way too much space in this post. Thanks.
