Aren't you glad you got rid of your Sticks and Bricks.

It's what Fulltime RVers strive for..  No house to take care of or worry about.  Retire... hit the road and be free... Fulltime in an RV... 
It's the new American dream.
To say Mow the Grass is a dirty word.  I agree to a point. 
Now the rest of our story... 
We went with that thought for over 8 years... and still are fulltimers traveling most of the year fancy free. 
But last spring it seemed to us it was time to look at winter seasonal properties in AZ.  The housing market dictated it... even a dumb shit like me could see that...  The right time to at least take a look. If not now... when... when values rebound. All you have to do is go to Zillow.com and look around at properties in any area you are thinking about. 

As we found out it was the correct thing for us as we found a bargain... a real bargain for sure. Not underwater or foreclosed just a motivated seller and us ready buyers. And with depressed property values. It all came together in two weeks for a closing. The trick is... to say Yes Make it Happen and Do It. 

2200 sq ft  three section Palm Harbor house, 1250 sq ft all metal shop/gar, on fenched 4 ac.

A little history on why I think it can happen and fast if you want.
I believe I'm lucky in real estate.... 

I bought my first house and back when interest rates were about 14% in the late 70's.   After living in most every apartment complex in town friends liked to say (I smoked then) when the ash trays were full I moved. The helping part slacked off the more I moved, but I did it anyway... somehow.  I made it worth their while to help... as soon as they heard I was moving they know I would be giving away things I didn't want to move.  Anything I didn't want to move I gave away. After all a new apart. needs new things. I furnished many a friends apartments back then. After all the apartments... I bought a small ranch with one stall attached garage by assuming a loan at 7% and a $20K personal loan from my mom for a down payment. 

Google street view 

A cool place and party headquarters as not many could afford a home back then at those interest rates. I had a good job at the phone company... in the central office. Deals like that were about the only ones being done at that time due to the high interest rates. I did overpay for it to get that loan as I found out later at sale time. 
Later this first house sold on a Sunday night after the first open house at about midnight with back and forth calls. How... I told the agent she had that one weekend to sell it as she also was the agent on the next house I wanted to buy. If it didn't sell, both deals were off. She got a double slam and loved it. All the commissions went to her. 
The second property which I got from the same agent who made the first deal work sold that one the first day listed, that night.
I job move to Des Moines and my company paid the commissions. 
A year or so later I heard the U S Postal worker who bought it was shot to death on her route by a disgruntled lover. 

Now the third house in Ankeny, IA (suburb of Des Moines) did take OMG 8 months to sell in January 2004.  (So how many are still out there wishing they could sell anything these days at any price.) I do feel for you ... 
I had retired in January 2003 and we got it ready for sale and listed it that summer.  We were living in the  new 5er in the back driveway. Needed to keep the house looking good for showings. 
We had a split foyer with a three garage stalls under and a detached two stall out back for sale. If you don't know... split foyer houses went out of favor and are not popular.  We bought it because it had so many garages. Terry wanted a property with space for his hobbies. 
We back then said we bought 5 garages with a house attached. It was built by the developer who lived in it and we later found the street light on the corner worked out of our fuse box. Flip a switch and it was dark outside... Others did replace burnt out light bulb for us though. When it went out an electrical contractor neighbor would come bay with a boom truck and replace it.  Never got a bill, think they knew we were paying to keep it lit. We had to kept it lit as the same switch powered our back garage. No street light no back garage power. 
Don't remember ever telling the new owner about that... 
I found a picture of it...

Corner lot with a two car detatched garage out back. 

More about selling ... are you still with me?
We were not going to stay in IA for the winter as it was time to get out of town as it was already November and our 5er sewer hose had frozen solid.  So we left and headed south without a sale. We did sell with a new realtor working for us in January as in TX while we stayed warm. Made a small profit that we think paid for the improvements, or if you will.. like a new roof and siding.  You may call them maintenance... I call them Improvements.  The celebration and relief was huge as I wasn't  used to it taking so long to sell. You can see from the above last house sale was beginning to make us think we were mere mortals like everyone else who were trying to sell homes.  But we at last did it, and said over the years would we not want this home owner thing ever again... You read that right no house ever again....   How do things change. 
I took 8 years and look at us know...

Now just so you don't think that I'm pushing you back into a S&B...

Read On...  Deals my be great right now for seasonal winter properties BUT watch out you may have to get back into that thing like painting... and OMG  Mow  the Grass...  but in our case only once or twice a year do you have to mow... as this is Arizona after all. 
Do need to get it knocked down for the red flag fire season in late spring... that's about all.  Later the monsoon rain season kicks in and this whole place truns green. Last fall when we returned (we were gone all summer and only had bought this place in the spring) we were amazed at how high the green growth was. As soon as the rain ends it turns brown again. 
The perfect seasonal property... 
Just shut off the water at the road and be gone. We are at 4000 ft so it doesn't get that hot here so no need to leave the electric on for AC. We have great neighbors who are watching and we along whith them are at the end of a dead end private road. Nobody gets here without being noticed.

But with any S&Bs even a seasonal one you do need to... Stop here if it hurts to much to read on...  Do maintance... another of those OMG words... You may need to paint once in awhile ... but this event should last for many years... Don't Ya Think. This is I hope is the first and last time.  After all this place was built in 2004 and really didn't need paint that bad...  but being us we wanted to make it look top shelf. 

Now for the pictures...

Terry doing his thing applying the darker gray around the windows.   Later need to do the white trim around the windows.

He used his airless sprayer to apply the main house lighter shade of gray paint. Notice the over spray on the white window trim which will be done later. You do the main sections while not worrying about over spay as you will be doing the trim later. 

The main wall paint is done... now for the gray and white trim... 

We found a peach tree out back and most of it was dead... so we trimmed it up a bit and will see how it does. 
It's trying... wont destroy it, we like giving things a chance... good luck little peach tree... 

So there you have it...  after years of us as fulltimers saying NEVER would we ever get back into owning a S&Bs... But a how could we pass up this seasonal property.  And it is seasonal (a place to hang when not on the raod) Even in the winter we head on over to Quartzsite for a month or two. Terry needs his Gem and Mineral Club fix.

Why did we buy this property... 
This is just one of the reasons.. the view from the east back side looking southeast... where we are going to build a big deck to take advantage of this view. 

Terry fixed up the not finished shed from the prior owner out back...  It was just a shell, he did the siding, windows, roof, and door.  It had a cement floor and that ws about it. Not an eyesore anymore. I like to say he now has a place to go hide when I'm mad.  The 5er is off limits, me thinks... Too Nice.      In the background on the rise is the movie set where many popular westerns were shot including "Tombstone". Cool.

 
 

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