End of the road

Jeff and Maryanne · Newbie

End of the road

Big Mal · Senior Member

We looked at it years back but opted to keep house and as luck would have it a wise choice as circumstances changed without any consultation or care of our plans for the future ......

Brodie Allen · Guru

Don't go back on the road and stay where you are (In a house I presume)

Move in with the family - their turn to look after you.

Don't despair - I have the same thoughts myself at times.

"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die"

B

Gundog · Guru

We have basically finished touring, we now live at a caravan park in the whitsundays, when the time comes when we need some additional care, our youngest son wants us to live with him.

Hetho · Senior Member

I would NOT sell your home; assuming you own it. you may find out that it could well be your best option for when you are not able to travel.

the 4 options you have listed for your end of travel time are not something that appeals to me.

Regards. Hetho

jade007 · Member

Keep your home Reverse mortage it to buy a van and sell van when your finished travelling. The reverse mortgage can stay untill you passon

Whenarewethere · Guru

As said above, if you own your home don't sell it.

My other half for over 2 years has dialysis 3 days a week (leave home at 2pm get back at 9pm), plus all other appointments to go with it. She has no family history of kidney issues & always had a good diet. I am with her the entire time.

Couldn't imagine trying to live out of a vehicle with complex health issues.

There are two types of people in the world, those with health issues & those who are not there yet.

Magnarc · Guru

Hi J and M,

Do not sell your home. Should something go seriously wrong whilst on the road, you will always have the comfort of knowing that there is a secure base to return to.

Whatever your decision, I wish you well for the future.

valiant81 · Guru

Hi all; What ever you do, DO NOT SELL YOUR HOUSE. Just have a good look at how the prices of housing had grown over the last few years. Is it any wonder that young people are have a lot of problems trying to get into the housing market.
My wife and myself moved from Mildura to Tasmania 7 years ago and for what we payed for our house in 2017 has more than doubled in price if we were to sell now, even in Tasmania the prices of housing stock have risen that much. Just think hard and long, don't get me wrong traveing with your caravan/ motor home is a great way to seel Australia and all it has to offer. But what happens when the weels fall off and one of you get sick or even die but need long term medical treatment or you are sick and tired of traveling and want to slow down and buy a property some ware. You may find that the price of housing has gone up that much you could not afford to buy another home.
Another option would be to rent out your house for a while (this can be a very risky move).

Have a talk with a your financial adviser/ accountant or even your bank manager for a bit of advise.

-- Edited by valiant81 on Friday 30th of August 2024 08:33:58 AM

Are We Lost · Guru

I agree with the other comments about not selling your home .... assuming you own it as you referred to "we need to sell everything".

A pensioner home owner can get a lump sum and/or regular payment with the Pension Loan Scheme. It's effectively a reverse mortgage that never needs to be repaid and the interest charged is less than what you can earn from a bank deposit.

Possum3 · Guru

A lot depends on the location and condition of your current home - If current home is in a premium location, you could sell and buy a small cottage in a smaller village not far from a major city with good hospital and medical coverage, perhaps any surplus monies could allow the purchase of a suitable van.

Then follow advice from AWL above.

Cupie · Guru

I'll just have to join the mob who advise DON'T SELL THE HOUSE ... unless in doing so you can immediately fund purchasing of a lesser home with a margin for purchase of a caravan/rig and enough for an emergency/future fund.

One of the options that you mention for post travel living is a cheap retirement village.

They are very popular in our area at present and hard to come by. Long waiting lists seem the norm. Unless you want to go to a less desirable or country area you'll find them quite expensive.

Your estate loses a lot of capital with Retirement Village exit fees! But then Land Lease Lifestyle villages are relatively expensive to purchase and in often very high ongoing Site Fees.

In any case you might be well advised to buy one to your liking & budget NOW and use any spare capital from the sale of your house (assuming you own one), after putting aside a substantial emergency fund, to equip yourself for touring.

A downside is that in most cases you can't rent out Lifestyle or Retirement homes while you travel. But they are safe & secure with minimal mtce. while you are away.

Keep in mind of course that 'downsizing' is not without costs either. We have just gone through that process and the cost of selling, buying & refurnishing the flash new Lifestyle Village home in our case was in the vicinity of $100,000 (not including the cost of the new residence). Of course it can be done cheaper, perhaps for half that amount, but in any case it is not a cheap exercise. We were fortunate that our sale/purchase prices could handle that sort of expenditure. Just luck IMHO.

Good on you for asking the question an excellent first step.

We are all different in terms of what financial security we are comfortable with so in making your decision be well aware of your future situation where you can no longer enjoy the life traveling this great land of ours. Which you seem to be doing by asking the question

ps. Perhaps you could consider a less grand caravanning lifestyle ... eg. Short to medium tours in a small motorhome (Whiz bang) and once that is out of your system longer stays at relatively close destinations like seaside villages or perhaps country showgrounds.

I know in our case we would love to replace our ageing Patrol & Jayco & set out doing the lap et al but considering that at age 82 I have only a couple of years safe vanning left in me, we just modify our type of vanning.

I've probably rabbited on a bit but I tend to do that. Just hope that my rather disjointed thoughts are of some help.

Peter_n_Margaret · Senior Member

Jeff and Maryanne wrote:
My wife and I are going back on the road again soon. We will need to sell everything to do this. That's an unfortunate fact of life for us, but if we want this amazing lifestyle it's what we must do.

This is clearly more important to you than worrying about the "what ifs" that might or might not come later.

Those who choose to do so can live good lives on the pension without owning houses or other assets.

Just do it.

Good luck to you and enjoy your lives on the road for as long as you can.

Cheers,

Peter

Corndoggy · Senior Member

This has cropped up in other forums.
Good to see that the advice is not to sell your house. From memory some advice in these other forums was to sell your house, get out on the road and enjoy your life. All well and good if everything goes well and you die whist on the road but if you don't and have to stop or you run out of money what do you do then. If you have to sell everything to start this then I expect you would have nothing when you finish this. Good luck with finding something in a tiny home community. Good luck with burdening some family member with loading your housing problems on them. Good luck in buying something cheap in any retirement place. Only other place I can think of you living is under a bridge, if there is space and it hasn't been taken up by some troll.
The way accommodation is today you really think you will be given some place as easy as. No way.
If you have to leave the question to others on what they think and you can't decide yourself then mybe full time travellers is not really for you. You should know your own situation and ability to do this and have thought through the pros and cons yourself,not be making up your mind from others say.

msg · Guru

Never sell your house. Also do not buy something that has monthly fees attached as well and you don't have a choice as to whether you pay them or not.

I also would not rent out your home. Noone looks after your home like yourself and you will not come back to the property in the same condition as you left it.

I understand, this is a very tall order. You have to consider very carefully and realistically what you are prepared to accept.

Think about how inflation will affect your decision. In normal times it will be 3% or times like today? well I think food has increased by at least 25% over the last 5 years. So if normal, you can probably expect it to be managable and the pension will usually move with it. However, that doesn't necessarily apply to a lot of capital costs. Replacing your car. Having your house painted. Certainly, cost of a house will increase.

So even if you sell your house and invest all the money, it may not make enough to buy a new house down the line. Don't ignore statutory costs and selling and buying costs. They can also be quite substantial. With the cost of a caravan etc what you put away will be substantially less than you received for your current property.

Another thing that has been worrying me is, living on the road has become a lot more expensive and stressful. There are a lot more people doing it and places to go are becoming overcrowded. You can't just rock up to a CP and expect a park anymore. You more than likely have to book ahead. This adds stress. to get to a place at a certain time. Lots more stress than there used to be. Free camps? well they are becoming crowded with homeless and there will probably be no room for you. Free camps are also quicly being closed down so there are not as many as there used to be.

This is only my OPINION. It is only based on my personel experience and circumstances. and I could be quite wrong. I am not a financial advisor nor do I have any professional expertise.

Gundog · Guru

Wether to keep or sell your home depends on your intention of how long you want to be on the road for, If its to a full time plan then the home could be come a mill stone.

On going costs rates, insurance, service costs for utilities even if everything is turned off and grounds maintaince. If you dont rent the property out then you would need to contact your insurer as to the coverage for long term unoccupied conditions. I would be also be concerned it may become a target squatters or other illegal activities.

If the property is to be sold then, yes get advice on the best investment of the proceeds of the sale, at the time you desire to cease your wanderings, you could choose to downsize in place you visited, I'm sure if we were to move back into bricks and morter, it wouldnt be back in Melbourne or any other capital city.

Corndoggy · Senior Member

You never know what's around the next bend or what's coming the next day.
A mate up the road and his wife were finishing up work and were going to travel. They didn't need to sell everything, a bonus right there. He did mods to his tow vehicle and they purchased a new caravan for there travels. They did a few trips in it to get used to the routines. Everything looking good. Covid hit and the travels stopped. Things happen. Travel time came back and getting ready to go. A bad family situation happened and it was put on hold again till they were ready to go. Then the really bad news hit.
"Sorry to say you have cancer. Treatment should start as soon as possible." Well that put an end to that. He ended up having to get a liver transplant and still to now can't travel. The caravan was sold early in the treatment. Now this was something totally unexpected. How would it have been if they had to sell their house to finance all the expected travel costs. Now being sick and living somewhere in a caravan for a long period of time isn't the best mentally or physically.
Now for us. We were looking at purchasing a new van to do some long term travels. We did not need to sell anything to finance this, lucky us.
Was looking at doing mods to my vehicle for the travels. Then all of a sudden, WHAM, I could hardly walk, couldn't stand, sit, walk or drive for any period of time. I couldn't drive over speed humps in the local shopping centre without intense pain. My back was gone. Did not get away anywhere for over 12 months as it was a long drive to get to our on-site van and couldn't setup our camper trailer. Any ways time came when we could get away with lots of breaks when driving. Start to think about travels again. Then BAM. Wife gets diagnosed with cancer. Travel gets put aside again. Hard to go anyway when you got doctors etc. twice a week if not sometime three times, treatments and hospital stays put everything on hold. At this time we are at monthly visits, evey now and then fortnightly.
What would have happened in these situation if everything had to be sold to get to do it then only to be hit with the worst news you could have. Easy for some to say just go for it when it isn't them that it could happen to.

Blues Man · Guru

DON'T sell the house.

Peter_n_Margaret · Senior Member

Some people need to re-read the OP's post.
The big decisions are already made. They are selling everything.
There is no mention of any house.

My advise (again) is just do it. Don't try and anticipate the future too much because the chances of getting it correct are minimal.
There is plenty of work out there for those who want it and are flexible.
Volunteering is also a wonderful way to meet local people and discover more about places that the tourists never experience. Many volunteer opportunities also come with reduced or zero living expenses.
Never let an opportunity to do something different slip by and always accept any invitation form a local. Resist setting deadlines to be in a certain place.
Choose your vehicle for maximum "go anywhere" capability and be fully self contained for as long as possible.

Cheers,
Peter

Bicyclecamper · Guru

If god forbid, anything happen to my wife, I would sell the house and live in a campertrailer, out at the Emu, which is a donation camp, where their are some other homeless people living as well. One bloke has been there 5 years. My wife couldn't do what I would do, she would just have to batten down the finances to live in our house, to keep up with the increasingly expensive rates and energy costs, me personally I would be in a tent, have done that before, not an issue.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Saturday 31st of August 2024 01:30:36 PM

the rocket · Guru

Agree.

sold everything. on the road 10 years, now settled van in caravan park For now but if shtf we can stay full time.
Cheap rent, rent assistsnce , pension . We have all we need. Life is great.

best decision we ever made. Better than sitting in a home, bored brainless.

going new places, seeing new things, talking to interesting people, seeing how some people live is mind boggling, happy hour. Oh god, the list goes on and on. Enjoy While u can.

Bicyclecamper · Guru

the rocket wrote:
Agree.
sold everything. on the road 10 years, now settled van in caravan park For now but if shtf we can stay full time.
Cheap rent, rent assistsnce , pension . We have all we need. Life is great.
best decision we ever made. Better than sitting in a home, bored brainless.
going new places, seeing new things, talking to interesting people, seeing how some people live is mind boggling, happy hour. Oh god, the list goes on and on. Enjoy While u can.

I wish I could get my wife on board with this idea, but although she does want to travel, not willing to do it at the expense of selling the house. We did live in a nice van park in Ballina for 18 months, after our 2 year trip away around OZ and the Islands up north in the mid 80's. We started from scratch at that point again, she states we are too old to do that again, maybe she is right, but you can't take it with you.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Saturday 31st of August 2024 08:13:25 PM

JayDee · Guru

jade007 wrote:
Keep your home Reverse mortage it to buy a van and sell van when your finished travelling. The reverse mortgage can stay untill you passon

Your home is your CASTLE. My view is do not sell. What with the price of real estate today and in the future will be a pleasant $$$ surprise.

I concur with the reverse mortgage system. The interest rates you will have to pay would/could be offset by the increased value of hour CASTLE.

This is a great option for you so that you can then realise your travel dreams.

Also perhaps think about renting your home whilst on your journey.

Take a step back and rethink your options.

Good luck with your decision.

Jay&Dee

the rocket · Guru

Bicyclecamper wrote:
the rocket wrote:
Agree.
sold everything. on the road 10 years, now settled van in caravan park For now but if shtf we can stay full time.
Cheap rent, rent assistsnce , pension . We have all we need. Life is great.
best decision we ever made. Better than sitting in a home, bored brainless.
going new places, seeing new things, talking to interesting people, seeing how some people live is mind boggling, happy hour. Oh god, the list goes on and on. Enjoy While u can.

I wish I could get my wife on board with this idea, but although she does want to travel, not willing to do it at the expense of selling the house. We did live in a nice van park in Ballina for 18 months, after our 2 year trip away around OZ and the Islands up north in the mid 80's. We started from scratch at that point again, she states we are too old to do that again, maybe she is right, but you can't take it with you.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Saturday 31st of August 2024 08:13:25 PM

Hi bicycleclamper, yep. Cant take it with you. Never seen a hearse yet with a trailer behind to carry it all to the grave with you. Life is not a rehearsal. Get out n rnjoy while u can.

Dunmowin · Guru

Hi, we quandaried all the same questions.

Here is what we did in 2011

With the aid of your financial accountant, considered consolidation of oursuper. We sold our home, and everything in it, keeping only a few personal antiques.

Our super kept us until we were entitled to age pension

After ten years on the road, illness hit, and we had to stop travelling on advice of the medical staff in Cairns

We contacted our financial accountant again, and he advised us how much we could invest in a new property. So, we decided Warwick Qld prices suited us, was near enough to Toowoomba Hospital for the care we needed. We purchased our two bedroom detatched unit for $235. Sold the 4WD and Caravan, bought a 4year old subaru

We are very happy in our new life and our new town, even tho it is not exactly new to us. We did not /are not ready for, life in a retirement village, our unit suits us down to the tee.

Silkwood · Member

Not jumping in on the sell or not sell, but... " Don't try and anticipate the future too much because the chances of getting it correct are minimal." is simply not true. The chances of guessing the future are statistically valid. Insurance companies do it all the time. Your job is to make the choice about which statistically likely scenario both meets your needs and you are willing to risk.

Anyone who says "just go ahead and do it" is making a choice for you which may or may not be one you are comfortable with (they may be, that's THEIR choice)...

Cheers, Mark

Peter_n_Margaret · Senior Member

Silkwood wrote:
Not jumping in on the sell or not sell, but... " Don't try and anticipate the future too much because the chances of getting it correct are minimal." is simply not true. The chances of guessing the future are statistically valid. Insurance companies do it all the time. Your job is to make the choice about which statistically likely scenario both meets your needs and you are willing to risk.

Anyone who says "just go ahead and do it" is making a choice for you which may or may not be one you are comfortable with (they may be, that's THEIR choice)...

Cheers, Mark

You need to read and accept the OP's original post.

"My wife and I are going back on the road again soon. We will need to sell everything to do this. That's an unfortunate fact of life for us, but if we want this amazing lifestyle it's what we must do.

My question for all of you lovely people who have had to do the same thing is - what do you intend to do when you can no longer travel?

What options are there?"

If you can predict your long term health, you are one of the few. Frankly, statistics might help predict your financials, but they are not going help with the lifestyle questions that the OPs have already decided that they are pursuing.

And good on them. They could have decades of pleasure ahead when your statistics would destroy that.

Cheers,

Peter