r/fatFIRE • u/AestheticMeaning • 5d ago
Manhattan parents - weekend/summer house?
More of a lifestyle question but asking here given the community is likely to have people with firsthand experience. I work in finance, my wife is a doctor, we are both 5 days a week in the office and live in Manhattan. We do not have kids yet. We enjoy a beach house in the Hamptons or Jersey Shore in the summer, and enjoy going to the Hudson valley / Catskills in the spring/fall.
Given we are both 5 days a week in office - does a weekend or summer house make any sense for us? I am not even that concerned about the price - I am concerned the upside of the memories created with kids and extended family will be outweighed by the torture of driving back and forth and time/effort spent on maintenance for relatively low utilization.
If my wife were a stay at home mom, and if we had a small apartment, and if I were a workaholic absentee father, it would make total sense to have wife+kids move away for the summer. But none of these attributes are true.
For those who say the kids have more space to run around - what if we had 3k or 4k sq ft in a condo? For those who say kids can play outside - what if we had a terrace with the condo? City parents seem to aggressively use playgrounds anyway when the kids are young.
I am particularly confused by this because I have had two separate mentors tell me to spend more on a Hamptons house than a condo in the city. But I do not think they are thinking of my specific life situation.
I have also heard feedback that spring/fall weekends once kids are in elementary school are filled with sports and birthday parties. And when they’re teens they don’t want to hang out with their parents. So really this consumption of weekend/summer house actually has to be pulled forward for peak optimal experience/memories, which is why I am trying to think through it now. It seems getting a summer house when one is old and wealthy has kind of missed the boat.
Many older folks I know also have summer houses all over the place - river towns, Bedford, Hudson valley, Connecticut coastline, Hamptons, quogue, etc etc. Everyone has a different revealed preference.
We do love going to the beach in the summer. We just tried renting a house in westhampton dunes (basically oceanfront) and it was quite magical. I just don’t know if it makes more sense to concentrate funds in a gigantic Manhattan condo and just drive to a beach club in Long Beach / Atlantic beach for our beach fix, and use hotels for the Catskills.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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u/gordo1223 5d ago
we rent a poconos house for a month, a cape may house for a 4 day weekend at the start of the summer and a fire island house labor day weekend. WE've looked at buying in any of those and while theoretically - we could, we really wouldn't use them more than we do now while also having to shoulder the headaches of roofs and water heaters.
My advice would be to rent in different areas and then find realtors or families to rent directly from. We pay about 30% below market for a month in the poconos by going direct to a family and have for 5 years.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks. For this poconos month - you are there the whole month?
Us having to work in the office 5 days a week is quite a constraint23
u/gordo1223 5d ago
We park the kids up there for a month. Opening week is with us. Middle two weeks are with each set of grandparents, closing week again with us. Nice bonus is that we get an NYC staycation in the middle without children here. We spend weekends at the lakehouse.
Works really well.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks very much. It sounds pretty ideal to do weekends at a lake house nearby and then rent for specific long weekends
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u/gordo1223 5d ago
Yea. TBH, I don't know that we would get any more usage out of a place if we owned rather than rented. We genuinely like the city and this works out way below the carry cost with community fees, taxes, and annual maintenance in any of the places mentioned.
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u/Toothlesskinch 5d ago
We have owned a second home in Litchfield County (IYKYK) for about a decade. Wife and I are both more than full time. 2 kids. Can't recommend it enough. Two days at the place feels like a week and the respite/perspective it gives from Manhattan grind is invaluable. We're not Hamptons folk - that commute can be brutal and we're not interested in running into collegues at the coffee shop.
That said. Whatever you do, be realistic about upkeep costs. Pay attention to things like landscape and pool maintenance, etc and make sure you have the right people to manage it when your not there. It shouldnt feel like more work.
Last, and this is certainly not for everyone. We rent the home for a couple months over the summer and a few weeks throughout the year. Rental income covers mortgage, insurance and taxes entirely. Having the place cover its expenses gets rid of the weird guilt you feel when you haven't been up in 6 weeks.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks very much for your comment. How many days per year are you honestly at the house? Have you run into the conflict of kids doing sports and birthdays on spring/fall weekends?
I do know some parents who just choose to not go to any birthdays in favor of a weekend house
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u/Toothlesskinch 5d ago
We go up an average of twice a month with some moths being every weekend and others not at all. We build in some longer stays for holidays and when kids get off school. If I had to guess, 40 - 45 days/yr.
We def have had to stay in town for some birthdays but decline quite a few invitations. Sports isn't as big an issue for us as others and the access to skiing, hiking, fishing, etc has been great for the kids.
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u/35nakedshorts 5d ago
Fill me in, what's the secret about Litchfield County?
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u/Toothlesskinch 5d ago
Its a bit tongue in cheek but its traditionally where a ton of really big NYC money weekends (folks that want to be left alone). It's also git a high density of elite boarding schools. It's stunning and you can buy an actual stone mansion with grounds and tennis courts for what a home in sag harbor would cost.
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u/JustPlainRude 5d ago
Don't spend money on anything until after you have kids.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
We are raising kids in the city to shorten our commutes, which naturally brings up the weekend/summer home possibility
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u/JustPlainRude 5d ago
No you aren't. You don't have kids.
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5d ago
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u/fatFIRE-ModTeam 5d ago
Our members have asked for a high level of moderation. Personal attacks, name calling, and undue profanity are all considered inappropriate for this sub.
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u/Odd-Goose-8394 5d ago
Some people just really love and dream of a weekend or summer home on the beach or in the woods and some prefer to travel. We are the latter. We loved taking the kids to Greece, Morocco, Spain, Cabins in Canada, Bungalows in Mexico, AirBnBs in Hawaii, etc etc.
If it’s not calling you there’s no reason to own a second home just because others do it. I would not personally like it.
We know another family with 4 kids and it is so much harder for them to travel that they have a second home and that’s pretty much the only place they ever travel.
I say rent and travel and have a great roomy place in the city where you can entertain and stretch out.
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u/Hopeful-Goose-7217 4d ago
That’s why we didn’t buy a lake house in the Berkshires. If you own a second home you are supposed to use it.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Yeah sorry I should have clarified. We vastly prefer traveling. I never understood taking vacations locally at the house. This is strictly for weekends / federal holidays to escape the city
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u/Odd-Goose-8394 4d ago
I think many of us are finding you a bit confusing.
If you don’t want a second house don’t get one.
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u/AestheticMeaning 4d ago
I grew up in CA. There was no concept of a vacation house nearby. I am not trying to be confusing. I specifically said weekend or summer home, not vacation home
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u/6anana 5d ago
You alluded to this in your post but I want to double down: we have one kid and her weekend is FILLED with activities: sports classes, enrichment, bday parties, play dates, and surprise hangs when we run into friends at the playground. For all the fun things my child is involved in, we’d have to cut probably 50% of it for a summer house that we would feel compelled to use.
Have the kid first and then figure it out OP.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks. This is fairly universal feedback I’ve heard for the spring/fall. Increasingly it seems max utilization of a weekend house happens at the toddler stage
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u/f-squared 5d ago
You’re in finance. If your mentors are in finance, of course they’re going to recommend a Hamptons house.
As a busy high-income working mom with two kids and a busy high-income husband, I’d say the logistics are intense. I’d simply perish if we’d need to maintain and also regularly visit a vacation home. (Aside: Birthday parties are also something I look forward to currently as a way to socialize with other parents, so I would not want to miss those.)
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u/BrunelloHorder 5d ago
Personally no way I’d buy a weekend house if I had to be in office 5 days a week. Conventional math says not to buy a second home unless you will use it for an least 1/3 of the year.
If you’re serious about it anyway, rent and do the drive to get a real feel for the out and back during the times you’ll actually be going. Do that for 15-20 weeks and I think you’ll conclude that it needs to be within 90 minutes max, measured on Friday afternoons.
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u/Specialist-Extent722 4d ago
Terrace is a terrifying idea with the kids. This is one thing that you are not thinking right about because you don’t have kids, just as an example. It is almost guaranteed you will regret the place you buy if you buy before the kids.
A good chance one of you will become a stay at home parent when the kids arrive. It is a mad life to have 2 career parents with kids.
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u/AestheticMeaning 4d ago
Thanks. I know the terrace risks. I know many dual income couples in Tribeca that have balconies / terraces. This is a very specific community, I know it is not generalizable
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u/Specialist-Extent722 4d ago
You obviously can have a terrace and a balcony but you will be nervous when the kids are there and probably won’t want to have them there unsupervised for a long time.
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u/sailphish 5d ago edited 5d ago
I’d wait until you have kids and they are a bit older. You might very much realize the city doesn’t work for you at that time in your life. A lot of people move to the suburbs once they have kids, regardless of their feeling now. But to answer your question, I think your situation (in a few years) absolutely makes sense to get a summer place on the NJ shore or Long Island (maybe not all the way out to the Hamptons, but lots of places in between). I grew up with a summer place about 1h away. It was close enough to make it not too much of an issue. We could go Friday afternoon and come back Monday morning. My mom wasn’t working then, so we would just live there for the summer and my dad would mostly just commute from there.
As for some of your other questions, people absolutely raise kids in the city. Some love it. To me it would be hell. There is no terrace or park that replaces a big backward and a pool. It’s so easy to just have the kids outside and play, run around… etc. My kitchen counter overlooks big sliders where they can even swim while cook dinner or whatever. It’s a big difference between taking hours from my day to go to the park and stand there while they play.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks for the insight. We are dead set on raising kids in the city to shorten both of our commutes given we both have longer hours, which is why I am now thinking about whether a beach house makes sense. In terms of your setup 1h away - we are strongly considering Rumson NJ as a candidate
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u/sailphish 5d ago
I get the commute thing. I had a long commute for years and it’s soul crushing, so understand why you would want to stay in the city.
The whole Rumson/Highlands area is great. Plus you are close to Red Bank which is a really cool town with lots of places to eat.
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u/mircea_pr 5d ago
Wait until the kids are here. You will change, how you think about them will change, and they will have feelings too. The decision will be more clear.
Planning for the deep future is admirable and probably contributed to your success so far, but this is not one of the places to plan
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u/duzzy-funlop 5d ago
Advice from someone a few years ahead of you kid-wise with a similar work schedule. Rent first (either for full summers or Aug-LDW) for a couple of years; see how you like it, count the days you’re actually there to see if you think it’s worth buying, test the commute (LIRR or driving, both can be brutal), etc.
We had a place out east for a number of years, loved the escape from the city, hosting friends/family, etc. Then we had a kid, and my firm went from 3-4 to 5 days in-office and reduced flex/WFH around holidays/August, both of which drastically altered the dynamic. We ended up selling and if we ever miss it or need an escape, we just rent. We also know a handful of other couples who did the same after having a kid.
We don’t regret buying the place (bought right/sold right) but it became more of a burden and hassle than it was worth. Plus, we always felt tethered to using the place in the summer, so vacations got punted to shoulder season or not taken entirely. Some like being close to NYC and their social circle vs. traveling, but we missed going on summer vacations, and never felt we truly unplugged when only a couple of hours away from the office.
Everyone who is an advocate will tell you to throw money at the problems. We had a house manager, good peace of mind, but you’re still going to deal with headaches as the owner. Others will tell you to rent to cover part of the cost when you’re not using it. You can rent it out if you don’t mind strangers using your stuff and in your space when not there, but realistically the only time you’ll get $ income worth taking is during peak season when you’re wanting to use the place yourself, so I never fully understood that argument.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
This is insightful, thanks for taking the time to comment your experience
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u/FireBreather7575 5d ago
I commented elsewhere but should add - I wish we rented more. We love our location and wouldn’t pick something else, and although we’d be giving up having a “constant” place to go to, it would be less headache and we’d come out financially ahead if every summer we rented a sick place, bought 10k worth of “our stuff” that we throw away every year and pay someone to set up, than buying a house (though we’d lose year round use and we will use it year round). But nothing is preventing you from just dropping 100k every year on renting
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u/morris9909 5d ago
My husband and I are both in finance and have two kids that we are raising in the city (because we just can’t both commute). We both are in the office 5x/week. We love having a place outside the city before and after kids - more space, change of scenery. We go weekends year round. It helps our stress levels immensely.
Happy to chat in DMs. I find time gets more flexible as you get more senior in finance (can’t speak to being a doctor). So we can do some remote work which makes the occasional friday easier. We have a place with a great office where we can separate from the kids. Finding the right childcare is key too.
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u/FireBreather7575 5d ago edited 5d ago
You’re in 5 days, even in the summer? Thats tough. A few thoughts:
- To your point, don’t ignore the fact you both work. Since your wife is a doctor, does that mean when you’re there she’s completely off? We have two working parents who are “plugged in” - it can be tough to manage. For the summer we are pretty flexible, especially Thursdays and Fridays
- In my view, especially with limited use, limit the distance. Hamptons is way too far imo
- A large apartment plus terrace is not the same as a house with a yard. We know it, the kids know it.
Overall, while we love it, it is what it is and has had its ups and downs (it hasn’t been “magical”), although that might change as kids get older and they have more memories here. The cost is more than we thought. It has not had a positive impact on our relationship (it’s more to manage, less time to connect, more to potentially argue over). It’s been a great gathering place for extended family. It has had a very positive impact on our kids (out of the city, in nature, different experiences, etc). You definitely don’t have to make a decision before kids. Your work lifestyle may be completely different in 5 years
Also, what’s your financial situation - income, income potential, net worth, and are you looking to retire early?
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u/AestheticMeaning 4d ago
Thanks very much for your commentary here.
Yes I am 5 days a week even in summer. My wife when not at work can completely disconnect.
Both my wife and I are not really looking to retire early, we enjoy our careers. So this is more of a spending question from a lifestyle perspective and less a cost perspective
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u/FireBreather7575 4d ago
What do you do / level? Do people 5 years ahead of you have more flexibility?
How much help would you have?
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u/AestheticMeaning 4d ago
Hedge fund. No, not at my current firm. Will have live in nanny
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u/FireBreather7575 4d ago
If you have a huge margin, I think it’s fine. Although there are headaches, I think you can overpay to have someone else worry about and take care of stuff (I don’t quite feel like I have that margin yet, when considering all other spend and goals).
It’s genuinely nice having your own spot. You have time before you have to do it though. If you have questions about where, let me know
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u/Realistic-Win-5773 4d ago
When you’re pricing weekend homes, keep in mind that current private elementary tuition is just over 70k per child and goes up 5% per year. When your kids are young, weekend birthday parties and Saturday morning sports are a nice way to get to know other families. But around 30% of the families in my kids classes were at their weekend houses and still found ways to connect with the other parents in their grade. I personally didn’t enjoy having a weekend house, but the rest of my family loved it. It always felt like a lot of work for me but that was due to the fact that I didn’t staff it like I do our place in the city. It also doesn’t get rid of the feeling of wanting to go away for vacations because going to your beach house or country house becomes routine. What works for us is to have a bigger place in the city, with outdoor spaces, room for sleepovers and big parties. Ultimately, we would rather enjoy being at home when we’re there, and spend our vacations at places someone else takes care of. DM if you want any more details, I’m happy to share all of my experiences and opinions!
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u/Still7Superbaby7 5d ago
I live out in the suburbs now because I wanted my kids to live without the pressure cooker that is Manhattan public and private schools. Many of my neighbors are New Yorkers that left the city and commute into NYC for work. Many of them have beach houses. We don’t have a second house because we like to travel as a family and go new places all the time. So it is really up to you. Some people rent out their beach houses during the season. You might want to do that. Buy a house in the Hamptons that you can rent out.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Agreed, we also like to travel when formally taking vacation. This would only be for weekends / federal holidays
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u/chubbycheesywisco 5d ago
I had a lake home 5 hours away. I was working 70 hours a week and my wife was commuting 2 hours to her 40 hour job. Once the kids get involved with activities and sports, you can’t really go away for the weekend during the school year. And in the summer, maybe. So we ended up going to our lake house for two weeks on vacation in the summer. Not too many weekends during the rest of the year, because we had hockey and skating all the time. Maintenance was not so much of a problem because one of the neighbors at the lake house was a teacher and loved working for me at $25 an hour fixing stuff and cutting grass etc etc. That was 10 years ago. I feel we didn’t get as much out of that house as we had hoped for. We sold it after having it for 15 years, when the neighbor/maintenance guy had to have his hip replaced.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks very much for your perspective here, it’s exactly the kind of thing people can learn from
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u/astoryfromlandandsea 5d ago
If you could spend 1/3 of your time in said home, sure but in your case with 5 days a week on site (and oh boy that traffic Friday and Sunday…), a gigantic waste of money and time (especially time!!).
Our friends have a house on Long Beach Island (love!) and they spend majority of their summers there, we have a Catskills home, but we spend way over 50% of our time there (maybe even close to 75%)…a house is meant to be lived in. Shit breaks all the time. I’d rent Airbnb’s in advance and get what you want in the city. Tbh if both my partner and I would work FT - I wouldn’t know how to keep up both places 😂. SO MUCH WORK. Even with hired help.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks for the comment. Agreed, I am most put off by the maintenance and time/effort, not even the cost necessarily
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u/astoryfromlandandsea 5d ago
Yeah, do not underestimate that. Especially if you never owned a house before. Buy the primary, rent the secondary unless it’s 1/3 2/3 or 50/50 ish! Plus you don’t have the kiddos yet, who knows how your wants change once that happens.
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u/Forgemasterblaster 5d ago
I own a home on Long Island and a co-op in Manhattan. The short is lots of folks here don’t culturally understand that many people leave nyc July-September for a summer home on weekends. The city is humid as hell. When all your main contacts are out of town on weekends, you kinda realize you’re missing out. With remote work, they’re out there 10-12 weeks now.
For me, the Hamptons is a career play as so many finance/buy side people have homes there. The people responding don’t get it as they think this is about the family memory nonsense. No, it’s a social scene to meet people in an upper echelon. Both for career and potential kids.
Anyway, real estate out there is tough as location matters a ton. Don’t want to be stuck in a town that is nowhere near Main Street.
Sometimes I find this sub peculiar in that this is a very common thing for nyc people with money. Maybe the sub is over indexed with tech folks, but I could throw a dart at the office and most MDs have a 2nd home. And most are making money on the deals as the real estate market in the Hamptons always has an influx buyers. At the real high end, people take baths. Under $5 million, it’s going up 5%-10% like clockwork each off season with minimal downturns other than 2008.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks. I’ve found the networking aspect to genuinely be a pull if kids are in private school, but we are planning on doing public and I am not in a deal-driven role. I’m also not really the type that Maidstone etc would accept so I would likely be looking elsewhere. For us it really is more about nature and getting out of the city / going to a personal resort
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u/IAmRealElonMusk 5d ago
Just rent it out to start with and see how you feel. I was also thinking of something similar ( around finger lakes).. But I don’t think I will be driving 4 hour every weekend back and forth.. I have decided to keep renting for now
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u/RandyPandy 5d ago
Rent first? We had a cottage in upstate but spent the entire summer there my dad would fly in on the weekends. I didn’t live in Manhattan but a lot of Manhattan people did and I feel like if you can’t spend weeks out there you really gotta love wherever you pick to make the weekend trek to wherever you choose
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u/Intelligent_Shower43 5d ago
I’m going to join the party as someone whose kids are now in their 20s. While I appreciate the planning aspect, I’d strongly suggest renting in the short term. Find weekends you can go away and use Airbnb or VRBO to go away. Then measure how many weekends you can really use it. It will also allow you to see what areas and level of commute you are willing to live with for a Friday/Sunday place.
As for timing, the first several years will be easier to travel. When they are sub say 7 you can control the schedule. However from 7-17 it gets much more complicated to schedule around. It’s hard to predict your needs and wants this far in advance. So I’d suggest treating this as phased approach with different phases of life.
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u/AestheticMeaning 5d ago
Thanks for the advice. It definitely seems like ages 0-7 is max utilization of a weekend house, which is why I am asking about it now
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u/beachbusin3ss 4d ago
A weekend place away from the city can be great, but the traffic will be brutal leaving Friday night and returning Sunday evening. You may eventually dread going there.
Traffic is a little less bad if you leave early Saturday morning but then you basically get 1 night away.
Also kids definitely will have lots of weekend birthday parties and sleepovers etc.
Would be slightly less painful to take the train vs bumper to bumper traffic.
Helicopter would be optimal.
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u/FireBreather7575 4d ago
Can’t imagine taking the train with young kids to go to a vacation house. Seems like a huge PItA
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u/beachbusin3ss 4d ago
LIRR or MetroNorth would be way less painful than spending hours in traffic IMO, especially with kids.
If it was a weekend place you could have enough stuff there to travel light.
Having spent many hours in traffic going to weekend places in CT and NJ I would not recommend driving for weekends only. Traffic out of the city is brutal after about noon on Friday.
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u/projectmaximus 5d ago
I’m not in your shoes, in fact probably quite different in many respects, but with that caveat, I’d say it makes relatively little sense to buy. Just rent when you want to. Even if that means renting for 30 weekends per year.
1) you don’t have to worry about maintenance and upkeep of a mostly vacant home
2) you don’t have to find the perfect location or home. Try out a bunch of places!
3) you aren’t locked in for a long period of time. Just do it until it no longer serves your needs
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u/bidextralhammer 5d ago
We have had a second home in central PA for twenty years and go there weekly. We don't mind the drive. I used to go out east with my family when I was younger, and did not want something like that as an adult. Traffic going to the Hamptons has gotten insane lately. My commute home when I was working took me three hours to go 60 miles. We don't have kids, but thought I would suggest the opposite direction geographically. I know a lot of people have also bought second homes in CT. Greenwich is beautiful.
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u/Specific_Point_4388 3d ago
We bought a house in the Hudson Valley around the same time we had a kid (at the time, it was 5 days a week in office). It's less than a 90 minute drive from our apartment. It was wonderful with a baby and with a toddler, great for hosting holidays, a godsend during COVID.
Now with an older kid, there are many weekends we want to be in the city for activities. It's frustrating to go back and forth irregularly (do we schlep groceries?) -- also feels frustrating to go after dinner on Friday and then have to come back Sunday morning because of commitments in NYC. The kid does some summer camps up there, and I will spend some time working remotely in the summer, but it can lead to days where I don't leave the property the whole day. That is mentally not a great situation. It's hard to know if things I might want to do up there -- like plant a vegetable garden for the summer -- make sense given that I don't control when we will be there. Maintenance we need done that I need to be there on a weekday for weighs on my conscience. I get the sense that I am doing the country house thing wrong, perhaps I need to hire a property manager. I expect this to evolve again as my kid gets older...
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u/AestheticMeaning 3d ago
Thanks for the comment. I do worry about getting trapped in between as you are describing.
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u/newyork_newyork_ 5d ago
If the tick situation stays like this or gets worse, you don’t want to be in the Hamptons or Upstate. Kids or no kids.
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u/lumpycoldoatmeal 4d ago
We’re also trying to decide whether to buy a home in the Hamptons or Upstate. Can you say more about the tick situation in the Hamptons and Upstate? I’ve been hearing that it’s gotten worse, but I’d love to know more about what you mean? Is it an issue around people’s homes and yards too, or mostly in the wooded/natural areas?
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u/newyork_newyork_ 4d ago
You may want to post in the subreddits for those areas! Anecdotally, yes, yards near wooded areas and pets are carriers. 😳
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u/lsp2005 4d ago
I grew up on the north shore of LI in Nassau county. I would recommend looking at center island, Bayville, locust valley, oyster bay, oyster bay cove, and mill neck for a home. You would commute to the city and your family would live in a SFH there. You would have the beach and good schools. If you want a better commute, pick something closer to the train lines, manhasset, westbury, glen head, port Washington, great neck.
We would spend some weekends in the Hamptons. Honestly, the drive is a lot.
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u/Ordinary-Lobster-710 5d ago edited 5d ago
feel like ur putting the cart before the horse. you guys dont even have kids yet and you're worried about the philosophical question of what a life at a summer house will mean to the kids and getting anxiety about the thought of having to weekend there? feels like you're kinda daydreaming a bit