How to Pay Your Monthly Mortgage in One Weekend
Lisa Selin Davis | June 28, 2011
I started seriously entertaining the idea of buying a second home in upstate New York (as if I own a first one) after agreeing to rent this place in Accord, N.Y. for a holiday weekend with friends. That’s right, we are collectively paying $1,300 for four days in an upstate New York rental house: a mid-60s place with a ping-pong table, outdoor fireplace and a pond. (In our defense, we decided to do this late in the game and there weren’t a lot of choices left–and the place is very nice.)
I looked this Accord, N.Y. house up on Property Shark and found that the owners bought it for $160,000 in 1999. Even if their down payment was small and they renovated, a weekend rental surely covers the monthly mortgage (to rent it for a month is a whopping $8,000!). And there must be thousands of nincompoops like me who will pay top dollar to get out of the heat. Upstater’s own Alia rents her place out to non-nincompoops on VRBO to help pay the mortgage and it works.
If you’re thinking that the market is still soft up there, take note: this house is currently assessed at $620,000! I can’t imagine anyone paying that much for it, but then again I never thought I’d pay this much for a weekend in the country. So this reaffirms my search for a vacation house upstate–it will save me a whole lot of money on rent.
