We're just finishing up our first snow bird trip in Florida, and heading back home to MT in a week or so.
We've enjoyed it, but would like to go longer next year (we did 2.5 months this time).
We have no intention of selling our home in MT, we love the summers there.
If we want to go for the entire Winter, 6+ months, I'm concerned about the house.
I've considered renting it out, but there are all sorts of tax implications, and worst case, even if it's a friend or friend of friend, we could end up homeless if a renter won't move out and we have to go through the courts and all of that stuff.
I know it's not the best to have the house sit vacant, drain the water, etc, especially in a cold area.
What do other full-timers/longterm-timers do? Am I best to hire a property manager to come by and check the house every 2 weeks? My father in law has done it on this trip, but I don't want to burden him with it for 6 months.
Thanks in advance for advice!
KD
Trip of a Lifetime Blog - 12000 Miles, 100 Days, 34 States, 4 Humans, 1 Mini Daschund...FUN!
2007 GMC Yukon XL Denali - 6.2L, 6-speed
We snowbirded for ten years and left our house in a cold area (NE WA mountains-got down to -30 one winter). Blew the water pipes out and also heated the house to 55 degrees F. Put RV antifreeze in the traps. No break-ins or vandalism. Maybe we were lucky. The only problem we had was that, the first year we left the house unheated and warmed it up too quickly causing some temporary buckling of the floor vinyl in the kitchen and cracked a couple of toilet gaskets. Better to keep it heated but if you don't, at least warm it very gradually when you arrive home.
2000 Born Free 24RB Class C
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Eddyline Merlin kayak
mockturtle wrote: We snowbirded for ten years and left our house in a cold area (NE WA mountains-got down to -30 one winter). Blew the water pipes out and also heated the house to 55 degrees F. Put RV antifreeze in the traps. No break-ins or vandalism. Maybe we were lucky. The only problem we had was that, the first year we left the house unheated and warmed it up too quickly causing some temporary buckling of the floor vinyl in the kitchen and cracked a couple of toilet gaskets. Better to keep it heated but if you don't, at least warm it very gradually when you arrive home.
That's sort of what I was planning, I have my house heated to 50 right now, and I have IP cameras that allow me to check various areas of the house, even looking directly at the tstat so I can check the inside temp. It's a little more expensive to keep it heated, but cheaper than replacing an entire hard wood floor.
Just in case it got missed, we're not selling the house under any circumstances, at least not at this time.
If you could flip a few bucks to a neighbor kid you trust, have them go in and out of your driveway. Walk in, walk out a few times. Just to give passersby a bit of a lived in look. If a neighbor is looking for somewhere to store their car, your driveway/garage is a perfect place if that's possible. I saw you have IP cameras, so I would imagine you have lights throughout on timers.
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My parents who lived in MO. used to call the Salvation Army, they would come in and clean, then move a family they had prescreened in.
The SA had an agreement that when Mom and Dad were ready to come home to call and let them know and they would move the family out and go in and check for damage and clean again, a couple of times they even repainted.
Mom and Pop had the security and a free cleaning service.
Don't know if they still do this but M & P loved it.
I don’t need anger management-I just need people to stop pissing me off.
Vancouver, WA
2006 Holiday Rambler DP
We aren't really snowbirds or fulltimers but extended RVers, we leave our house 7 to 11 months a years. I blow all the lines out and use RV antifreeze in all the drains and washing machine, the heat is left at 45' in the winter and the A/C is set at 85 in the summer. We have a neighbor and good friend that checks in on it once in a while.
Denny
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Denny & Jami wrote: We aren't really snowbirds or fulltimers but extended RVers, we leave our house 7 to 11 months a years. I blow all the lines out and use RV antifreeze in all the drains and washing machine, the heat is left at 45' in the winter and the A/C is set at 85 in the summer. We have a neighbor and good friend that checks in on it once in a while.
Denny
This is giving me confidence. It could be 8 months, and no AC needed, just heat. My house is all pex, so it's a bit like a 4300sqft RV anyway, so I can follow the same procedures.
We're a lot like Denny & Jami, we are extended snowbirds who are at our place in the Rockies for maybe 2 months out of the year.
Our house is in a remote area with no major tourist draws, so we don't get a lot of traffic and the only break-ins in those parts are bears. We hire a professional, bonded security guard (who doubles as a deputy) to come in weekly during busy times when hunters are around, bi-monthly during the dead of winter.
We do winterize the house and blow out the pipes. We don't leave the heat on, except for heat tape at our well pump.
We've never had any issues, but....
This current season we experienced a super high electric bill and could't figure out why since all power was off. The bill was more than when we were even at the house, almost $100! So we had our security guard go up there and shut off the main breaker panel. The electric bill is normal again (just basic service fee being charged), but now we're scared to see what not having any heat tape might have done.
Another thing to consider is to talk to your insurance agent about your coverage. You may need to turn your current policy in to a vacation policy, which costs more. Or you might be able to do that for just half the year.
Otherwise though, it's great! We love being able to have a little place to return to when we want to, but enjoy the open road as much as we want!
We shut off the water at the road, blow it back to the main, blow out the house, put antifreeze in the drains and toilet, the dishwasher and washing machine get antifreeze then run the pump, all the electricity is off.
We, too, are in a rural area with no reason for anyone else to be there, and it's a looong dead end. Breakins are so rare that I haven't heard of any since we have been there, three years. Well, except for those pesky bears. To address that, we have steel doors, round knobs, and the windows are either too small or too high for Mr Bruin.
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