Thread: Could you actually live long-term in a van?

cant come soon enough for us too Chops...

We are planning to live out of this....

You probably could, but for me there are two drawbacks.
1. What if you are unable to drive anymore? Think health, age, etc. There will be a time that this will happen.
2. Once you leave a housing market, it can be very difficult to get back in at the same level (current ‘downturn’ notwithstanding). That assumes you still have the funds to buy another home.

My plan that I will consider renting my place out (if possible), maybe with our belongings in storage. Either way, we will have somewhere to come back to in a location where we want to live. If we get the need to travel again, we’ll just repeat.

Originally Posted by Hugh Jars

You probably could, but for me there are two drawbacks.
1. What if you are unable to drive anymore? Think health, age, etc. There will be a time that this will happen.
2. Once you leave a housing market, it can be very difficult to get back in at the same level (current ‘downturn’ notwithstanding). That assumes you still have the funds to buy another home.

My plan that I will consider renting my place out (if possible), maybe with our belongings in storage. Either way, we will have somewhere to come back to in a location where we want to live. If we get the need to travel again, we’ll just repeat.

Goods points which we have discussed.......I made the mistake years ago not buying and selling in the same market.

We will a patch of Land with some sort of dwelling as a fall back....probably occupied by the kids.

Originally Posted by Hugh Jars

You probably could, but for me there are two drawbacks.
1. What if you are unable to drive anymore? Think health, age, etc. There will be a time that this will happen.
2. Once you leave a housing market, it can be very difficult to get back in at the same level (current ‘downturn’ notwithstanding). That assumes you still have the funds to buy another home.

My plan that I will consider renting my place out (if possible), maybe with our belongings in storage. Either way, we will have somewhere to come back to in a location where we want to live. If we get the need to travel again, we’ll just repeat.

Ive often heard people say its hard to get back into the property market but its not difficult.
If you sell your home in the City / Suburbs you should have enough funds to buy a suitable rig to tour , live off the interest / pension then if the 'touring indefinetly' plan falls over buy a country property & live off interest / pension and still have more cash to spare than you ever would have if you were still living in the city.

Yes, moving out of the city to a good town is definitely a great idea. We're in the process ourselves.

Originally Posted by goingbush

Ive often heard people say its hard to get back into the property market but its not difficult.
If you sell your home in the City / Suburbs you should have enough funds to buy a suitable rig to tour , live off the interest / pension then if the 'touring indefinetly' plan falls over buy a country property & live off interest / pension and still have more cash to spare than you ever would have if you were still living in the city.

Dont get me to wrong, but I’m not sure to many people would be able to do that like I that. I think it’d only work if they owned the house, pretty much outright. I don’t think there’s a lot of people these days in that boat.
Even though we started with three properties, buying cars and vans takes up a fair swag of cash, which then doesn’t leave much for later.

I cringe every time I hear another person or couple has sold they’re property, and with said funds, gone and bought themselves a new tow tug and van, and think they will sell both (at the price they paid) at the end of a the lap, and go back into a house,, similar to what they sold.
I can’t say I’ve seen it happen yet in reality. Very sad really.

Originally Posted by Chops

Dont get me to wrong, but I’m not sure to many people would be able to do that like I that. I think it’d only work if they owned the house, pretty much outright. I don’t think there’s a lot of people these days in that boat.
Even though we started with three properties, buying cars and vans takes up a fair swag of cash, which then doesn’t leave much for later.

I cringe every time I hear another person or couple has sold they’re property, and with said funds, gone and bought themselves a new tow tug and van, and think they will sell both (at the price they paid) at the end of a the lap, and go back into a house,, similar to what they sold.
I can’t say I’ve seen it happen yet in reality. Very sad really.

Agreed 100% Cashed up Retirees meh !

I was pretty Lucky we paid of the house outright about 10 years before selling & 10 years prior to that I realised that If I kept playing with LandRovers would never have any money so moved to Toyota . Never had to spend another 4x4 Dollar till I moved back to LandRover , cant believe how much that plan helped me now.