Don't Buy a Second Home Abroad Until You Watch This

Picture this, you're 55, 60, maybe even 65. The winters are drawing in. Just look at the weather outside and you're thinking, what if I could go somewhere warm, not just on holiday, but actually living there. Whether you're dreaming about Cape Town, Portugal, Spain or somewhere else with warmer winters, this video is about what happens when you go for longer periods of time and you stop renting and you actually start owning your own winter escape. We spent eight years renting in Cape Town and then three years ago we took the plunge and bought our own home there. We realized life was too short, so after lots of research and deliberation, we took the plunge and it changed our experience in so many ways that we didn't expect. Now, Cape Town is our story, but the transformation applies wherever you're thinking of going. By the end of this video, you'll know if owning a winter day somewhere warm is right for you and what nobody tells you about making it work. So. So let's jump in. I don't know about you, but spending our winters in the UK when it's grey and cold is not much fun. Like many, James suffers from seasonal affective disorder, so he has a light box. And we hate it when the autumn weather heads towards winter. So for many years we've been going to Cape Town. If you follow this channel for a while, you know that we have visited over the past 11 years and of course each winter we would rent mainly Airbnbs, but also stay in some hotels as well. But two things happened really. First of all, the costs really add up because although Cape Town is really cost effective, like many countries, they know that the vast majority of people who are hiring Airbnbs or hotels, especially in the peak season, are foreigners and therefore they charge foreigner prices. And having an Airbnb for an extended period of time was great because it gave you a home base, but it wasn't our home. And there were always things that we felt were not quite right about it, and certainly lots of things we would change if we owned the place. So that led to the question, could owning a property in Cape Town make both financial and emotional sense to have those winter escapes? So from there we ended up researching lots and lots of properties and over a period of two years started looking and viewing properties and all that stuff until we found the perfect place. I'm not going to go into detail in this video about that, because you can go back and watch whichever side it is. Our previous video about buying a home. Then we'll tell you more about the specifics we went through. But what I do want to share with you is some of the sort of emotional shifts that happened as a result of buying, and they weren't always the things that we expected. So the first one, I guess, is an obvious one, which is we stopped feeling like tourists on vacation. There's such a big difference between walking through the door into your own home versus walking through the door into a new Airbnb. Airbnb, where you don't really know what to expect. There's that big sense of having your own space that you know really well, both the actual apartment, but also the location it's in and where everything is, versus, again, hoping that there's a coffee machine in the Airbnb or enough cutlery to have some friends over. And of course, the other things we had to factor in was did the air conditioning work? Would the WI fi be reliable? What was the area like for load shedding, if that still was happening? And all those other unknown questions. And that resulted in us staying in some fantastic Airbnbs, but staying in some expensive and not so fantastic Airbnbs, where, in fact, we ended up going out and buying things for the apartment because they just didn't have them there. So owning your own space is a really good sense of going home. And obviously you can make it exactly as you want with all the things that you want and need. And in the end, we started thinking we're going home to Cape Town, rather than we're going on a trip to Cape Town. And that makes a huge psychological shift when you know you're going to your own place. And indeed, next week I will be in Cape Town, and the next video you'll get will be my trip out there. The next thing to know is that when you have a base there, you build a real community and real friends, as opposed to just acquaintances that you might meet along the way on your trip. Where we live in Bantry Bay, we've built a really fantastic community of friends that we can mostly walk to, who are all doing the same thing as ours. And it is a really good sense of community. And the net result of that is that we have a busier social life in Cape Town than we do in London. And the. Because everybody lives close by and we're expanding this network of friends, we're often getting asked at the last minute, do we want to go out for coffee or join someone for a walk along the Sea Point Promenade, or go for dinner. And I find myself in the end turning invitations down because I don't know about you, but I can't cope with socialising every single night. But that's such a big difference in that sense of going home. Not just your own home, but your own community as well. But I think lastly, Cape Town has become our second home, not just a destination we go to now, of course, we had to make sure that was a place that we want to keep, keep going back to, and I'll talk more about that shortly. But you know, when we go home, we know exactly where the apartment is, how to park, where the coffee shops are, where the supermarkets are, where our friends live. And it's just a sense of going home, just like it would be going home to your primary home in the uk, Europe, US or wherever you're watching from. And of course, I want to be really honest with you, as we always try to be, owning a home in Cape Town has changed kind of James and I, because we at different stages in our lives. I'm retired pretty much. I do probably sort of half a day, a day's work a week. James is still younger than me, he's still working full time and that means that I can escape the whole winter in Cape Town, whereas James can only get sort of two to four weeks holiday at a time. But he recognizes that I'm at a different place in my life and he doesn't want to stop me going. And he knows full well that if he were in my shoes, he'd do exactly the same thing. And I think the really good thing about this is obviously we've got a really strong relationship, but also that we both really love Cape Town and our longer term plan is when James retires that Cape Town will definitely be our second home. And the net result of owning a home in Cape Town is that I don't feel guilty for long periods of time staying out there because I'm staying in our home. And James doesn't feel FOMO because he knows, not into the too far distant future, that he'll be joining me in the same lifestyle in a place that he also loves. Now, I want to talk about some of the practical shifts, because owning a home in Cape Town means we can make it as exactly as we want. It means that we don't have to worry about security, about paying deposits, all that kind of stuff. And it also means that we can have friends come and visit us and we know that we can accommodate them or we can have friends over dinner and we know that we have enough crockery and cutlery and space to see them, which definitely wasn't Always the case when we were in an Airbnb. Now, also, the financial equation really shifted here because we were spending quite a lot of money, probably four to five thousand pounds, to stay in Cape Town in a reasonable one bed Airbnb in a sort of door to Kansas Point Greenpoint area. And owning our own property means that we're obviously not paying that, but we're also making income from rent. And that rental income pretty much covers all the costs of running the apartment. And of course, when we first moved in, we had to buy new things like dining room chairs and crockery and plates and cups and bed linen and sheets and all that kind of stuff. And the rental income was able to cover all of those costs. And the net result is that it makes our time in Cape Town in the winter way more affordable and cost effective than if we were spending the winter in the uk. Now, of course, it's not all sunshine and roses, so I want to share with you some of the unexpected challenges. First of all, there's the challenge of managing a property from 6,000 miles away. And if you are buying a second property anywhere in the world, I really highly recommend that you get a very reliable manager of your property. Now, we are really lucky that we use the same person who sold us the apartment who also manages properties, Richard from Knight Frank. And he has been absolutely brilliant, as I've said before. So he takes care of many things. And one of the challenges of about having a property so far away, things do break when you're renting out. So, as you'll know, the washing machine's broken, the fridge broke twice, and we ended up having to replace the fridge. So we've got to deal with all of those costs and unfortunately, they weren't covered by home insurance. You want to make sure you've always got a kind of reserve fund to cover those costs. And you've got a fantastic property manager who you know has got your best interests at heart and taking care of things for you. And, of course, as much as you can be informed when you're buying a property abroad, there are different rules and different laws that you have to follow. So the process of buying a property in Cape Town and the paperwork was very alien to us, actually. Much simpler than the uk, but still alien to us. So make sure you're talking to people that have already gone through that process, or you're talking to accountants and lawyers that you can really trust that will help you through that process. And for us, actually, it was very straightforward. We made the offer in the apartment in March and we owned it by May. So it's very quick, very different to the uk. As you'll know, we're right in the middle of selling this property and it's been going on forever now. I'm sure one of the questions that a lot of you are asking or thinking, which is definitely a question that we thought about, is yeah, but that does really tie you into going to the same place every single year. And you know, if I'm honest, James and I kind of look down on those at people that go to the same place in Spain every single year. But the difference is that we see Cape Town as our home and longer term we see it as somewhere that we will spend the six months of the winter every single year. That's both James and I and that's our commitment because we love the place. So we don't see it as a holiday destination, we see it as somewhere where we're going home. And of course, South Africa is such a big place to explore that we have only really explored a very tiny piece of it so far. So we want to explore more of Africa going forward. And also because we rent the place out, it doesn't mean that we do have to go back every year. There may be a year where we decide we're not going back because we're doing something else. Watch. This space kind of does tie you to be committed to that country, but it doesn't mean you have to go there all the time. And I think once we'd made the purchase before we actually spent our first winter there, we were thinking, oh my God, have we made a mistake? Have we just spent a lot of money on something that may not be right for us? But those fears were allayed after my first winter spending there. I absolutely love it and I can't wait to be back. So let's just spend a few minutes talking about some questions that you might want to ask yourself to decide if the location that you love is the right place for you to buy or should you just keep renting. So first of all, if you've been going back there multiple times and you absolutely feel at home and you love it there, like I said, we've been going to cape town for 11 years, then it could well be the right place for you. And if you are thinking about buying, then you need to think of it as at least 10 year commitment to make it financially viable. So if you're 55 now and you're thinking about 10 years in somewhere warmer in the winter, that takes you towards 65, 70 then it makes absolute sense. But if you're thinking of it just for a couple of years, then maybe it doesn't make sense. Maybe community and roots is way more important than sunshine and beach it and this one is huge because owning a property means that you are really putting roots down somewhere. And that means you've identified your favourite coffee shops, your restaurants, you've got a routine and you're building a community of fellow minded people that you really get to know, even if you only see them for a few months every year. Now if you're buying a property abroad, you need to be comfortable with the property management aspect of it and like I said, find someone that can manage it for you if you're not prepared to do it or you're not able to do it locally. So I would say you should stick to long term rentals if you love exploring different parts of the world and you really don't want to keep going back to the same place or you haven't found that place where your soul feels really at home like we have with Cape Town. But it could be Portugal, it could be Spain, it could be Thailand, it could be anywhere. Now maybe you have visited Thailand a few times and you absolutely love it. But my advice would be go some more times before you make that commitment. Don't just visit twice and have the sort of seduction of the sunshine and the cost of living and think that's it because you need to dig a bit deeper before you decide. If you want to invest in Thailand, for example, for the long term, maybe you're not really willing to take on all the responsibilities that comes with owning a property, such as maintenance issues, communication, noisy neighbors, all the things that might happen. If that's the case, then probably buying a property isn't for you. And secondly, if your health or mobility isn't fantastic, then maybe buying a property is just one more piece of stress and headache that you don't need in your life and therefore probably renting would be a smarter move. And lastly, of course, if the upfront costs or the thought of taking another mortgage out is something that is just not right for you at the stage of life you're in, then long term renting would be a much better option than buying somewhere. Now here's the truth. There is no right or wrong answer to this just about your life's priorities. These questions work whether you're thinking about Cape Town or Portugal, Spain, Thailand or Philippines or anywhere else in the world. Now the location might change, but the questions you need to ask, don't. And the emotional decisions you need to make are remarkably similar. Similar no matter where you're thinking about going. So that's all the sort of practical thoughts. But the overriding thing we always said was life is too short and none of us know what's around the corner. So we need to make sure that we are getting on and doing the things that we want to do and love now, rather than just spending an infinite loop in planning. And to be quite honest, I think the older you get, the harder it becomes to make big decisions. So by making this decision now, we are kind of committing a pathway to our future life, one that we are both really committed to. And I think here's some of the kind of permissions that you need to give yourself when you're thinking this through. First of all, you don't need to find the perfect property. You just need to find one that's perfect enough in a place that you absolutely love. You absolutely won't have every answer before you buy. We didn't. And you'll learn a lot very quickly now. If you've tested the location many times and you keep getting drawn back there, then you've already got your answer. So you need to listen to your heart and your gut instincts. And as I said, life's too short, so don't get caught up in analysis. Paralysis. And I think there's sort of two regrets that we see. First of all, people that rushed into buying a property and then regret it afterwards because they didn't spend enough time in that location. They were seduced by the sun and the gin and tonics and regret it afterwards. And lastly is the people that thought about buying but didn't. The years go by, they see their friends who did buy and they regret it. But now they feel it's too late. Well, actually it's never too late, but that's how they feel. So my sort of wrapping up advice is that if you're a stage in your life where you're heading towards retirement, you're able to spend more time somewhere out of your country in the winter, if you want to be in the sunshine like ours, you visited somewhere multiple times. You absolutely love it. It feels sort of like going home. Then I would say do it, but do it with your eyes open. So has owning a property in Cape Town changed things for us? Absolutely, yes, but sometimes not in the ways that we expected because it's not about an investment or the property itself. It's about the excitement of going home to somewhere that's vibrant and sunny when the weather here starts to get cold, dull and grey. And here's what nobody tells you. The hardest part isn't the money or the logistics. It's about giving yourself permission to make that decision. To say this is my place, this is my home, and this is where I want to spend the winter and to stop endlessly researching and researching and researching. Now Cape Town is our answer, but yours might be Spain, Portugal, Thailand, the Philippines or somewhere we've never heard of. So over to you. Where are you considering for your winter base? Or is there somewhere that you'll fancy exercising about going? Do leave a comment and let us know. I love hearing from you guys. I promise I'll answer every single one of them. And I'd love to know also what's stopping you from making that decision? If you've got this fantasy, what's stopping you? Do let us know in the comments. Now if you want to know about the full buying process then I'll put a link to our previous video about that which I haven't gone into today but I have done in a previous video. Your 75 year old self won't remember all the logistics and the research that you went through, but what they will remember is the experiences and the that fact fun that they had in your sunny winter location of choice. Food for thought, right? And if you found today's video useful then do give us a thumbs up. Make sure you've hit the subscribe button but otherwise I will see you in Cape Town next week. And this is James who's working upstairs and Rob and we'll see you next time.