How My Search for a Retirement Home Became a Retirement Income
Several years ago, a friend and I traveled to Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks, looking for a possible retirement home. We fell in love with Virginia Beach: the location, the homes, the people, and the cultural opportunities in the area, such as the Virginia Symphony, the opera, and the ballet. In the summer time, there are free symphony concerts on the beach, plus small entertainment groups along the boardwalk and the parallel Atlantic Avenue. There is also something to be said about Southern charm and hospitality. Virginia Beach is definitely the place to be!
Although my visit to the coastal Virginia area was for the purpose of a look around, I ended up buying a home right on a lake, with a dock, and lake views from every window. It was like being in a wildlife refuge. So many birds! Beautiful! What a great place for retirement.
Living in Sacramento, California, and working in both Sacramento and San Diego, my home is in Sacramento. I love my job as a professor at the university, and presently have no intention of retiring any time soon. However, when I become older and am unable to work, and need to retire, I plan to spend my time on the East Coast near my family. For now, I am enjoying creating wealth. A few times a year, I travel to my retirement home in Virginia Beach where my family joins me for gatherings and holidays at the lake house. Most of the year, the house is rented out, ultimately paying for itself.
People love to visit Virginia Beach, so renting the house is easy. It’s so easy, in fact, I decided to purchase another home as an investment property, this time near the ocean, in the North End. For this investment, I contacted Don Maclary, the Howard Hanna agent from whom I had purchased the lake house. This realtor “gets inside your head” and figures out exactly what you want, then finds it for you. He found a beach house with a detached garage and upstairs loft, which provided two rental units which were always occupied by tenants enjoying the beach life. There’s nothing like a walk on the beach, with the sand between your toes and the smell of salt air. Don was able to skillfully negotiate the sale of this property so it sold way below market value. He truly is a master negotiator. I told him he thinks outside the box; he said he has no box!
Since then, Don Maclary and his Choose a Home Team have helped me, as both a buyer and a seller, with 22 real estate transactions to date. All of them have been profitable investment properties, paying for themselves with a positive cash flow.
My weekly rentals near the Coastal Virginia oceanfront, in addition to securing additional income, provide a family friendly vacation gathering place where I can spend a week with my entire family. Kudos to Don Maclary and The Choose a Home Team!