Holiday home in Florida

[RedRobin]

.
Hmm, if you visit Miami, take care not to go to the wrong part of town. It's acceptable to carry a gun in your brief case!

[MC71]

 Does depend what you want in life. To be mortgage free as an aim of many? If you've got that and don't need an extra income and don't want to sit on it then why not enjoy the choices the money will give you (within limits)?

Is there something you've always wanted to do but never could, ie your bucket list!

As you say, we're all different. What I might do in your situation may be million miles from what you or anyone else might do, for example I'd take my wife to the restaurant in Rome I proposed to her in years ago (oh and I'd have driven there in my newly acquired Aston Martin DB2 DHC). Money gone! 

[benjii]

I don't really need it to produce an income but i don't reallly like the idea of it just sitting doing nothing and me just spending it on stuff !

There are probably as many ideas as there are people !

It just a discussion topic and as you say it depends on peoples circumstances ..... So if you were 50 and finishing working full time what would you do with it

Buy messi for a week and play in my pub team so we can win 

Well really I would put 75k in a high interest account for raining days 5k for holiday for me and partner and the rest on investments from what I see property abroad is all over the place my father looking at one in Sardinia and prices are changing by as much as 50k each year up and down but his buying for personal use not renting

[rich83]

The big problem with Florida rentals is you have 2 markets, rent it to big holiday companies for pennies (if your property is average size, location, no standout features etc) or rent it privately for more money.

If you want to make money from it yours needs to stand out from the crown of 1000's of other Florida holiday villas, and with the way flight prices are going there are less and less people paying decent money for the villa they stay at.

Some people I know are booked up all year round for a 3 bed villa charging £800 p/w and they make a modest profit, others are empty for 6 months of the year, but they still have to pay full costs of the tax, management companies, licence fees, maintainence, insurance etc....

I go 1-2 times a year and would love a holiday home there. But I dont think I would do it as a business.

Thanks for your response.....Your view re standing out from the crowd is my view entirely and would be rented privately .

I think most people must have this dilemma when they are due a lump sum ??
Probably more so with interest rates like they are ....

So what would you do with the money ?

Thats impossible to say.... because we don't know your personal situation. What I would do with it is different to what you would do with it.

If it were me (and bare in mind im 29 and have a 2 bed house) I would put our house on the market (only been in since january) and use ~100K to move into a bigger house keeping 15K to do renovations on the property and put the rest away for a rainy day.

I wouldn't buy property abroad, unless i intended to emigrate.

I ASKED WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT . Not what would you suggest i di with it ! 

Ahh... fair point... In which case you got both answers!