EPISODE 006: A HOME AWAY FROM HOME

DRINK INFORMATION

Tom’s Drink – Highland Park 18-year Single Malt Scotch

Link to Highland Park 18 year old single malt

Ian’s Drink – Kavalan Whiskey (from Taiwan, NOT from India like Ian said because he can’t read the bottle…)

Link To Kavalan from Taiwan

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson
Hey, Tom, how did your parents feel when you were born?

Tom Kubiak
I’m sure, initially, they felt happy, but then they regretted it.

Ian Robertson
No, no, I’m not talking about that. Although I’m sure those are probably factual statements. I’m talking more about having a fully moustached baby. You know, like..

Tom Kubiak
Oh yeah. Well, it was scratchy for them, I’m sure. But, you know, hey, when you when you give birth to a fully grown manchild..

Ian Robertson
How old were you when you grew? So obviously, not everybody can see you depending on the platform they’re listening to this on but I feel like you’ve had your mustache forever. Like I can picture you being a little kid on your big wheel.

Tom Kubiak
I grew my mustache when I was 22. So I’ve had it for more than half my life much more than half my life.

Ian Robertson
And you’ve never seen your upper lip since?

Tom Kubiak
No, have not, no. And I feel like I I pulled the bait a bait and switch on my wife to a certain extent because I got when we got married. I didn’t have a mustache, but I grew it soon after. For the rest of my life..

Ian Robertson
A mustache fits on you. Like if I grew a mustache.. You know, I’d have to..

Tom Kubiak
But you’ve only known me with a mustache.

Ian Robertson
I know. But still, I’ve known other people that they’ve only had a moustache. I’m like, I’m pretty sure you’re driving a white panel van, what’s, I don’t know

Tom Kubiak
That, that is true. One of our friends grew his, grew a moustache. I’m like you need to, you need to get rid of that as soon as possible.

Ian Robertson
Like, I’d like a nice thick, luscious beard. Like..

Tom Kubiak
I would I would like a beard too.

Ian Robertson
They look awesome. They’re manly.

Tom Kubiak
But have you what’s the What’s the longest you’ve gone without shave?

Ian Robertson
It takes.. so growing a full beard for me would take months. It would not be a quick journey. I’ve gotten a few weeks out. You know if I time it just right. With all factors.

Tom Kubiak
Are you seeing any gray coming in?

Ian Robertson
Oh, yeah. And that’s like the best part like it’s coming in and in waves. It’s perfect. You know?

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, I know. I think the same thing because I when I think maybe two weeks is probably the longest I’ve gone but then I start to see the gray along the sides. And I do like it.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. Well, it’s a it’s a matter of matter of manliness to have a beard. But anyways, we digress. Today we’re gonna talk about vacation homes. What a weird way to start the podcast, but what are you drinking, Tom?

Tom Kubiak
So last time I was we were talking I was drinking Highland Park 12. And I told you the story about how my my cork cracked off in the bottle. And I decided to go back and pull the bottle of Highland Park 18 off the shelf. And so this one that cracked the bottle, the cork did not crack. So I’ll do my my aroma test.

Ian Robertson
Yep. Because the audience appreciates that, you picked up some flecks of whatever was in your moustache there too, on the way in.

Tom Kubiak
How about you. What are you drinking?

Ian Robertson
First of all, I want to ask, is there a big difference between the 18 and the 12?

Tom Kubiak
So let me tell you. Yeah, 18 is a little bit stronger. And it’s more caramely. A little smoother, a little thicker. Yeah. And actually, Highland Park 18 is a, As I mentioned last time, we were talking about 12 is an award winning scotch. This 18 is definitely an award winning Scotch, very good.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. You know, sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. When you talk about aging it like remember that time we had that 35 year MacAllan? Which by the way, have you looked at how much a 35 year MacAllan is? I’m like, they’re like four grand? I’m like, Yeah, well, I’m like, oh, you know what? That was a decent scotch. I wonder how much that is? Is like $3,905. I’m like, I didn’t appreciate that at the time. But I remember at the time thinking this is good. But I felt like they could have stopped that 25 years. And it would have been like, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

Tom Kubiak
And that’s the thing. I think a lot of people you know, there’s anything above that if you’re not a connoisseur, you’re gonna it’s gonna get lost. Like it’s not that much better that it’s worth paying 10 times the price.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, there’s something to be said about like, my flagship is always going to be Lagavulin. 16. And by the way, I got to drink it on the show. Because I found a bottle finally, they’re so hard to find.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, you did. But I feel bad. I think I have a bottle. You know that I haven’t opened.

Ian Robertson
No, no, keep it. It’s okay. Part of the fun of it is the hunt because when you find a bottle it’s like, yes. But it’s like okay, the difference between an 11 year and a sixteen year I can tell you know, but I’ve had other things where it’s like, you know, 18 year old can’t really tell that much of a difference. So yeah, but now you you go highbrow I don’t as Highland an expensive Scotch?

Tom Kubiak
it’s I wouldn’t say it’s it’s not outrageously expensive it is more expensive than Glenlivet or something like that.

Ian Robertson
What’s a bottle cost?

Tom Kubiak
It probably the 18 I would guess, getting close to 200 Maybe.

Ian Robertson
Okay, so it’s not a Thursday night whiskey.

Tom Kubiak
No.

Ian Robertson
So you tend to have some higher brow stuff than me and I’m gonna go with my theme that I didn’t realize it was my theme until I started buying lowbrow whiskies and this is really my theme. I got an Indian whiskey. You talked about Indian whiskies? Yes, liquor and all that stuff. So it’s called Kavalan Whiskey. So it’s from the Kavalan distillery. It’s not bad. I can’t read the back of the bottle. So..

Tom Kubiak
Is it in Hindi?

Ian Robertson
I don’t know. But it’s really, really small print. And now it’s making me worried about my eyesight and my age. But it is actually pretty good. Like, I almost worried, like, I open the bottle. I’m like, is this gonna be like the whole Dominican Republic thing where they were, like, people were going blind from the liquor and stuff like that. And like.. No, shouldn’t be.. Well, it shouldn’t be, but neither should that have. So.. But I took a sip of it. And I’m like, Hey, this is not bad. So it’s Kavalan, Kavalan whiskey. It’s a It’s a Thursday night whiskey. It’s like $40 for 750 milliliter bottle. And you know, what if I serve this to somebody who drink, like, I drink whiskey, I’m not a connoisseur, but I kind of know the difference. If you gave this to me. I wouldn’t have known that. It was like, you know, $40 for 750 milliiter might not even been that much actually. Because I bought it with something else.

Tom Kubiak
Good point. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I can have a bottle of I think it’s called John Paul. I should grab that. Maybe next time. I’ll grab that because that’s an Indian whiskey too. And it is good.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And I wanted to mention, if we mentioned this on the show yet, what is that pappy? What’s that whiskey?

Tom Kubiak
Pappy Van Halen pappy Van Winkle? Yeah, it’s a bourbon.

Ian Robertson
So why is that $12,000 Why is something that’s called pappy van winkles. Like you look it up online now I’ve seen bottles twelve grand.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah. So it’s, it’s a it’s a product of a couple things. The first and I’m not an expert on Bourbon. But if I think it’s really supply and demand in the case of why those bottles are so crazy. There’s a high demand for them because there’s a bourbon rush right now really, or maybe even for the past decade. There has been that people just want bourbon and pappy Van Winkle is generally recognized as one of the better higher end bourbons and the the older, the older bottlings like the 23 year is just like a collector’s item. You know, it’s a it’s a holy grail for a bourbon collection.

Ian Robertson
I know but it’s kinda like you’re sitting around on..

Tom Kubiak
It’s way too much.

Ian Robertson
Yeah you’re sitting around on your couch one day, you’re like, should I go on an expensive cruise or buy a bottle of pappy Van Winkle?

Tom Kubiak
Well, you know, and the thing is, there are there are people who want that like they, it’s the same type of thing with a Mouton Rothschild, you know, bottle of wine like people are what and and honestly, I would say it’s a very prestigious wine, okay, they, they would, you know, and I’m, I’m not a wine connoisseur or a sommelier, but the, the, you know, there are wines that are recognized as being you know, internationally well known and people pay 10 or $15,000 A bottle all day long for these wines. And the thing is, like, if I had a choice of paying 10 or 15 I wouldn’t do either but if I had a choice of paying 10 or 15,000 for a bottle of wine or a bottle of bourbon, I choose the bourbon every day week because you can have the bourbon and then close it and not drink it for three weeks and come back and have another one and then not drink..like the wine you open it you gotta drink it Yeah, it’s not gonna last.

Ian Robertson
And a bottle of bourbon. I mean, let’s be honest with you two ounces is going to do the same damage as a couple of glasses of wine. Yeah, so..

Tom Kubiak
But I will tell you I had a buddy of mine and I after we sold a rental property that we had put a lot of blood sweat and tears into. We we went and bought Mouton Rothschild. And it was at the time. I think the bottle was maybe cost us $350 And this was probably like 1999 Maybe no maybe like 2001 or 2002, something like that. Somewhere around there. Anyway, and, you know, if you look that same bottle up now it’s like $10,000. But at the time, it was $350. And we, we drank it was, you know, him and I and a couple of other other friends. And it was the best glass of wine I’ve ever had in my life. Really, it was unbelievable.

Ian Robertson
I guess there’s a reason. I mean, if people are gonna pay that kind of money, some of it is drinking the Kool Aid, so to speak, and then some of it is, okay, somebody found something really amazing. And now everybody wants it.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah. And you can tell how, like people when, and I’m not a wine drinker, like I said, but when you when you drink a high end wine like that, and it’s, it’s just so much flavor, and it the life in it, and body, it’s just amazing. But as far as I’m concerned, like, I have a hard time understanding how you can pay 12 or $13,000 for a bottle of bourbon that doesn’t..it can’t be that good.

Ian Robertson
And instead, we’d probably rather spend it on a vacation home. Exactly. So you’re an accountant, and I’m a home inspector by trade, and vacation homes, you know, all joking aside, like we were saying before, you know, all joking aside, people love to buy vacation homes, and you work with them on the end of financially planning for it. I work with them on inspecting it, like a lot of people just from all walks of life, you know, some people that you would think, okay, you know, they wouldn’t be thinking about a vacation home, people love it, they love to get away, they love the idea of it. A lot of HGTV thought goes into it, too. Yep. But um, there’s a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad. And maybe we’re listening to this episode saying, I’m going to turn this off, because that’s not in my cards. You know what? I’m not a rich dude. And I actually have a little camp with a cabin on it. And you can do things very affordably. And have a great time technically have a vacation home, and you’ve owned a vacation home in the past, haven’t you, Tom.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, yeah. My wife and I bought a beautiful cabin, log cabin in the Finger Lakes of New York, which is a it’s a beautiful area. We and we owned it for almost 30 years, you know, we loved it. But again, it’s one of those things that you know, there’s a time and a place for it. And there are considerations that you have to think about before you, you enter into the you know, the responsibility of having a vacation home. So, and it’s funny, because when when you and I were tossing around this idea, talking about it on podcast, we said is vacation home discussion really gonna matter to people. And I think the reality is, it does matter to more people than you think. And in my practice, I’m a tax accountant. I have clients asking me about vacation home purchases all the time. This very week, I had someone asked me about the what should be considered when they’re looking at vacation home purchases. And as you mentioned, it’s it’s a wide range, it can be just the land that you some land that you put a cabin on, that you go to on the weekends, or it could be a beach house in North Carolina.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, so when we’re talking about vacation home, there’s a wide range. So there’s a friend of ours, he, he bought a piece of land. And he actually motivated us to buy a camp because he invited us over, he had a camper there were walking into the woods, you know, he’d cut down some of the trees, and he’d mill them and he made her countertops out of them. And, you know, I milled some wood with him. And I’ve made all sorts of things out of them and made me countertops in my bathroom and all sorts of projects and tables and stuff like that. And I just remember thinking, this is the coolest thing ever. We’re standing on a pile of logs that we just ripped apart, made boards made things, it’s just, I felt like I should have taken my shirt off. Because we’re just drinking. We’re drinking whiskey as we’re ripping boards apart out of trees, we murdered them, and make them into something. And I’m like, This is the coolest thing ever. And me and my wife looked at each other. We’re like, we need to get a piece of land like this. And at the time, things are a little different in the real estate market. But at the time, I was surprised. I’m like you could like nobody, nobody wants to have land like that. Like there was land everywhere. Most of it was kind of crappy. But..

Tom Kubiak
You have to find the right piece. And you know, and that’s one of the considerations is, you know, what are you looking for? Do you want a camp that you can go in and you know, just just be on land? Or do you want to be able to have services while you’re there like water and sewer and electricity. You know, do you want it to be something that you can get to on a Saturday afternoon and be back by Monday morning? Or is it something that that you’re only going to go every other every third month and you’re gonna stay for a week? You know, you have to have those considerations in mind, especially when you’re When you’re doing when you’re planning your purchase,.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, so a couple things that I learned from buying it. So we actually bought the land and had a septic system, and the well there and a little bathroom setup. It was a fully functional bathroom shower and everything. And we actually had the Amish. There’s a lot of Amish in our area. They built and delivered the cabin, fully finished, insulated floor walls, metal roof, beautiful porch. I couldn’t find anything wrong with the craftsmanship. And they built and delivered it for cheaper than I could get the lumber because I was pricing it. I’ll do it myself. And I’m like, Wait, you guys will do it for the cost it’ll cost me for the lumber. And they’re like, We make our own lumber man. We look at that pile back there. We’ll get this done. And they did. But um, I learned a few things. First of all is distance.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, distance is a big factor.

Ian Robertson
So if it’s too close, it feels weird. So we were looking at some properties around us that were nice, but they were only like, 15 minutes away. Yeah. And sometimes I’d even like, pass them on my way to work. You never have that feeling of being away. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just weird. And then we were looking at some other properties. And I remember why we’re looking at this one. It was a good Almost three hours away. She’s like, is perfect. And you know, it was beautiful. I’m like, let’s drive it. Because I knew I’m like, I don’t want to drive three hours every time I go up to this thing. And then none of our friends were around there. Yeah. So it’s like, if you want a friend, you have to make them drive three hours. So we started to drive and she’s like, Yeah, no, this isn’t we didn’t even make it. Like this isn’t gonna work.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, that’s, and that’s actually what what was the downfall for our vacation home is that we, you know, like I said, it was in the Finger Lakes, we live in the capitol district in New York, it’s about a four hour ride one way. And when we first bought it, you know, we had less responsibility and, and we were newly married, and we did it, we would go, you know, once a month, maybe for a long weekend. But as time went on, you get to go less and you get to go les. And finally we were it was to where we were going only going in the beginning of the year to shut the heat off and in the in the end of the year to turn the heat on. Like that’s literally the only times we would go there. So distance is is definitely a factor.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And you have to remember too, a vacation home, maybe there’s a lake nearby, or something that like that. Or maybe we’re thinking, Well, I live in Oklahoma and I want a vacation home in Florida. Yeah. Okay. So now, are you going to spend three months there? Okay, then it makes sense, is worth it. To fly from Oklahoma. Land in Orlando. Maybe your vacation home is on the beach, and you spent a million dollars. And you’re okay, driving four and a half hours there because you’re gonna be there for three months. But if you’re if you’re looking for like a weekend place, or something like that, you really need to have it and my perfect Mark was 35 minutes to an hour tops.

Tom Kubiak
That’s perfect. That is yeah, that that’s easy to get to on a Friday afternoon, and you’re back on Sunday, and you don’t feel like you wasted your whole day driving.

Ian Robertson
Exactly. So our camp is 40 minutes from our house. Yeah, perfect. On a good day with no traffic, we can do it in 35 minutes. But it’s beautiful. Because we went camping this past weekend. And we stayed in the cabin, my wife said, you know, I’m gonna run home and check on the cats, ran home checked on the cats, and she was back in less than two hours. Yeah. And it was It wasn’t even a blip in the day. So if you’re going to stay local, you may want to be on the lake that is 300 miles away. But can you find a smaller lake closer because you’ll appreciate that later on.

Tom Kubiak
Agreed.

Ian Robertson
Being just a little bit closer or a little bit farther away? find that sweet spot for you. If you go over an hour, you’re just not going to go?

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, you’re not gonna go as often.

Ian Robertson
Yep. On a Friday night you want to be like, you know, let’s go up and we go up have a fire. Come back Saturday morning, and we’re done. That’s awesome. You’re not exhausted.

Tom Kubiak
Now some people think about okay, well if I get a beach house like in on the outer in the Outer Banks or you know along the coast of Florida or something like that, I can rent it out the times when I’m not there. And that is true. That’s that’s what a lot of people do in that facilitates them to be able to expand their buying power because they use the you know, the the rental income to cover the cost of the property. So but there’s factors with that so when you when you rent out a property that property gets beat up, you know, and and it’s not it’s not like it’s yours anymore. So if if you like going to your house and having your pictures on the wall and your you know special mementos and your your liquor cabinet filled with the things that you like to drink and Your board games in the room that you like to play, and your movies, you know, when you’re renting that out, that’s not gonna work good, because the things are gonna get broken, and they’re gonna get stolen, and they’re, they’re not, it’s not going to be your house anymore. So you have to be comfortable with, with making that exchange in order to get the extra income that comes from those rental units like VRBO, or something.

Ian Robertson
So here’s my problem with those is. So let’s say you have a house on the Outer Banks, and you’d like to go three times a year for two weeks at a time. So first of all, you’re gonna have to hire a management company. So there’s a lot of your you can’t go without a management company. And most of these areas, they either have house watch services, or just full on management, if you’re living next to that place managing it, you’re gonna have problems. Yeah, people burn the eggs and set up the smoke alarms and whatever. But then if you’re there, let’s say three times a year, and everybody’s like, Oh, I’m gonna be there every every month, it doesn’t happen, man, that just won’t, won’t happen. Yeah, back off, just let’s be realistic three times a year, three, two week vacations. And I don’t know what you do for a living that you have 2, 3, 6 weeks.

Tom Kubiak
Who’s got 6 weeks of vacation?

Ian Robertson
But let’s just say hypothetically, that’s what you do. You’re retired. Now, when you go there, it’s going to feel like you just described like you’re renting the place. Yeah. And you’ve already lost a lot of your profit, and then any profit that you have, you end up putting back into the place with repairs, taxes, garbage service, yes. You know, all that stuff. So you’re basically breaking even, and counting on equity in the building.

Tom Kubiak
Breaking even at best, at best, you’re breaking even at best.

Ian Robertson
Unless you own multiple properties. And then they make it up in volume. I actually learned a lot because I we went to the Outer Banks. And I was actually asking about all that stuff. And they’re like, Yeah, you have to you have to do volume. Otherwise, yeah, lose money. But now you’re doing that all that work, all that stress, all that time, all of this stuff for two weeks in a vacation house. Yeah, at that point, just rent a vacation house.

Tom Kubiak
That’s what my wife and I have finally decided is like when we and the other factor that you that we haven’t even added into that is when you have a vacation home that you want to go to two weeks, you know, for vacation, that means you can only go to that vacation home two weeks for vacation, if you want to go to Honolulu, or you want to go to Disney World, you can’t go because you got to go to your vacation home, because you spent all the money on vacation home. So, you know, that’s that’s one of another one of the downsides. So I’m, I’m with you in like just rent for the week, you end up with a better house, you don’t have the responsibility that comes along with maintaining it or being you know, taking care of it. And you can go wherever you want. So Now granted, renting means you’re not going to benefit from the increase in the value of the property. So there are times client of mine had, you know, some property in the, in the Virgin in the Caribbean, bought it a while ago rented it for a long time. We’ve actually even been able to stay there which was really nice, but and then sold it and you know, made like close to a million dollars on the sale because of the increase in value. So it does work out good. But that’s not counting the fact that if that original investment had been even just put in an s&p 500 Growth Fund, they would have quadrupled or quintupled their money, not just made a million dollars. So yeah, say I wouldn’t say that they’re that vacation homes are the best investment. They have to be done for the right reason.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and then there’s, you had to go with your personality type. So not everybody’s the same. So I love my cabin. And I am very fortunate that my wife and daughter love it too. Yeah. Because maybe you want to be in the middle of the woods with nobody around. And as one of my friend put puts it, go somewhere where you can pee off the porch and nobody sees it. And that’s and I love that. I love we go we go there every weekend all the way up through the end of the year.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah you’re there a lot.

Ian Robertson
We’re there a lot. We love it. But not everybody’s up for that. But if you’re up for that, find someplace local. I know some people that own Lake houses. Little small lake house and they just go up every weekend. And then it’s like generational like yeah, a mutual friend where they have a family lake house and they just trade off weekends and keep a calendar. Exactly, yep, they pass it on to the next generation and everybody loves it. Those are when I see vacation houses actually really, really working like my daughter the other day she goes, we’re at our camp and she goes when I’m married. I want to take my pictures over by the pond and I want to have the reception here, she loves it there you know.

Tom Kubiak
That makes you nervous. Your daughter’s saying when she gets married.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I know. I’m nervous for the guy that tries to marry her I’m gonna beat the tar.. You just gotta you just got to mutilate the first guy.

Tom Kubiak
And hang his head on the wall.

Ian Robertson
No, no, no, no, no, no, keep him alive. So he can tell the other ones and then the other ones are scared. So that’s all I’m saying.

Tom Kubiak
Did I ever tell you what my dad told the guy who was dating my sister. He, when he introduced himself to him, he’s he said, Oh, nice to meet you. And then he said, I just want to let you know. He said, looked him straight straight in the face. He said, My dad’s kind of intimidating. He said, I have a lot of money. And if you do anything to hurt my daughter, I’m going to use all of it to make your life miserable.

Ian Robertson
I like you’re dad.

Tom Kubiak
It was the best line. That’s what I’m gonna say to ever whoever dates your daughter, I’m gonna say..

Ian Robertson
Oh man..I’m gonna..

Tom Kubiak
I have a lot. And I’m gonna follow you for the rest of your life. If you hurt my niece.

Ian Robertson
I’ve already got my line…I may not be the biggest. I may not be the strongest. But there’s nothing scarier than a guy holding the little knife with a big smile. And I know how to use it. And I know where to put your body.

Tom Kubiak
And I’m totally okay with the consequences that will come from me killing you.

Ian Robertson
My Myers Briggs Personality Type is INTJ. I’m okay with this. I’m happy. You ever see that movie I forget with Harry Connick Jr. and a guy comes to take his daughter out. And I think this was the best dadline ever. He just he his daughter walks out to the car and he stops him in the door and he pulls him back and he goes, Listen, listen, listen, he gets up close to his face. Whatever you do to my daughter, I do to you. And the kid just like looks at him. He goes, what? And he goes, you heard me. I’m like I don’t even I don’t even know how to like process that. But that is a good line.

Tom Kubiak
That is a good line. That’s funny. How did we get from vacation homes?

Ian Robertson
But anyway, vacation homes are great places to hide a body. This podcast is getting us in a lot of trouble we went from you can..

Tom Kubiak
You can edit a lot of this out. And that’s what I hear.

Ian Robertson
I’m gonna leave it in. Our plans, our plans for burying my daughter’s boyfriends bodies. So anyways, whoo. So there are some other things to consider too, like, at my camp. We haven’t had problems. We really haven’t. But we went camping this past weekend, we made a bunch of bacon. And a bear said Ooh, I smell bacon.

Tom Kubiak
And you just sent me a picture of the bear, which is pretty awesome.

Ian Robertson
It’s a 300 pound black bear. And if he wants to get into my cabin, he can so we kind of need to go up and check it out. Yeah, I don’t know if he’s been in there or not. We tried to be very careful.

Tom Kubiak
How difficult would it be for him to push in the door or window or something like that?

Ian Robertson
It’s a bear. Yeah. Yeah, it wouldn’t if you wanted to knock that whole cabin over, I don’t know if we could stop him. Yeah, but it’s so not that everybody’s gonna have a bear at their vacation house. But like, one time a couple years back. Our property is actually really cool. It’s in the middle of almost 1000 acres of state land.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah. Great location.

Ian Robertson
Yes, it’s this one little weird spot of private land. I don’t even know how I got there. But it was awesome. I’m like, this is perfect. But the problem too in that is we’re in the middle of state lands. So people get it confused. And you know, sometimes some people walk through the property, not a big deal.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, I never thought about that.

Ian Robertson
Yep. But it’s not a big deal. Like, you know, there was a kid, you know, a month or two ago that was riding his dirt bike. He didn’t do any damage. I think he saw the signs and turned around because we have him on, we have satellite game cameras everywhere. So I watch and people hike through or whatever.

Tom Kubiak
Do you have posted signs up along the along the property?

Ian Robertson
All along the property. But you know, when you’re walking in the woods, you don’t see them all the time. But we had this homeless guy, pitch his tent, right across from our cabin.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, boy.

Ian Robertson
And one of my there’s an access road there. And one of the guys that owns property not far from me, he goes, Ian, you better go check this out. So I had COVID I was on death’s doorstep, I was as sick as sick get one of the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. And he’s like, you gotta go up there and check it out. So he sends me a picture. And on his tent, he’s like, if I can’t be here, just call this number he wrote in the Sharpie on the side of his tent. So I called the number nicest guy in the world. He’s like, Oh, I’m sorry. I thought this was state land. Yeah, I’ll I’ll get lost. Don’t worry about that. Oh, he was just He was just camping. He was homeless, just you wanted to live there for a while. I’m like, Okay, I’m not gonna call the police or anything, man, if you can just hightail it out of there. And then I’m thinking, I’m like, I kind of go up there and check to make sure he left, didn’t he. And then I had to check my neighbor’s place too I say, Neighbor, he’s like, miles down the road, he owns 100 acres. So I grabbed my dog. And my wife’s like, what are you gonna do? If this homeless guy decides to attack you, like, I’m gonna give him COVID. Because that’s what I got. That’s my only self defense. So I thought I was gonna die on the drive up there. Fortunately, again, 35, 40 minutes, he’s gone, I drive to my neighbor’s place, I walk around with my dog and check it out, and everything’s okay. And he has game cameras up. So I wave and give him the thumbs up. And but you have to be prepared for stuff like that. And it gets worse when you’re in another state. Like, there’s this guy that I work with. And he owns a place down in Florida. So he was up here in New York, and they had a hurricane down there. And there was nobody there that could button it up for the hurricane. Yeah, it because that’s what everybody else is doing. So he gets there. And he had to put an insurance claim it was like 100 grand in damage. And, you know, even if it wasn’t, say it was like three broken windows, you can’t get down there fast enough. And meanwhile there are gonna be raccoons and snake and some rain in there. If you’re not there..

Tom Kubiak
I’ll tell you the exact same thing happened to us. So you know, we had a power outage that our cabin was a year round property, it was insulated and heated, but the power went out in the middle of the winter. And you know, we didn’t know and we’re not driving down there in the winter. So come to find out it went it went out and stayed out long enough to freeze the toilet and crack the toilet. So you know, the standing water in the toilet froze. And it was enough to you know, just to crack it. So that’s the thing. If you’re if you’re not there, things are gonna happen one time a squirrel. I don’t we don’t know how he got in there. But he got into the wall that the electrical panel was in. And ended up getting electrocuted in the wall of the electrical panel. So we had to take all the the the interior paneling off to get him out, and then put it all back up. That just happens, you know, if you’re not there, enough.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And the that’s the thing. You can’t plan for a squirrel saying, hey, what’s in this box? Yeah, exactly. And plan for pipe freezing. And now Yeah, so you can be a little bit more prepared. Like, I use a lot of satellite. I use a lot of like satellite game cameras. And even in my own house. I have I have security cameras set up everywhere. Yeah. So I can see what’s going on at all times. I can talk and hear what’s happening. Yeah, even if you have that. Now, you’re doing that for two homes. So some guy decides to break in, what can you do? Call the police. Okay, he’s already broken a bunch of windows. If there’s a fire in your house, great. So you can call the fire department, there’s still a fire in your house. You know, it’s your your aways away. So we’re not discouraging everybody from doing it. I’m actually I love owning a vacation place. It’s Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s perfect. Yeah.

Tom Kubiak
And when you know, for the, for the first 20 years that we owned ours, we loved it too. But it after, you know, after we got busy with lots of other things that we’re just not able to use it as much and our vacation style changed. That’s another thing that happens. So with us, our vacation style changed. And we started liking a different type of vacation. And as a result of that when we went on vacation, we wanted to do this particular thing rather than go to our vacation home. So it changed our you know, it wasn’t as useful to us then.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, you have to remember that. And I think that’s a fantastic point. So you so I inspected a house one time for these people buying a lake house. And they were dreamers. They were riding down on their boat one day, and they’re like, man wouldn’t be awesome to own that house.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, then that’s common.

Ian Robertson
And that house went up for sale. Then they bought it. And then they realized, Oh, crud, this is a lot of money. This is a lot of maintenance. Because my you know, I’m in a home inspector. I’m like, oh, yeah, this is broke. That’s broke. This is broke. This is gonna cost you everything. College Fund. Nope, that’s gone. Look at that roof. Yep. And they were they were just besides themselves unhappy because I’m sure they got out somehow, but there wasn’t anything in my report that they could get out of the deal with because I’m like, this is all, they actually took good care of this place. This is all normal stuff, it’s just, you’re buying a lake house. This is bigger than your primary home.

Tom Kubiak
Well you know how much how much work it takes to just keep a house up. Yeah. You know that now you double it? Yep. So and that’s another problem. You go on vacation to relax and to not do things. And all of a sudden you’re fixing. You know, you’re fixing the leak over here and you’re patching this on the wall and because those things all need to be done.

Ian Robertson
Yep. So I do think by and large, most people unless you’re rich, if you’re Rich and you have people taking care of your properties. I’ve worked for rich people where they’re like, oh, yeah, I just have these people here. Just take care of everything and just show up. There’s one guy lived in a $3 million home, and he was only there for August. That was his August home. I’m like, Who the heck are you? Pictures of him with Muhammad Ali on the wall and Michael Jackson. It was it was craziness. But yeah, it was really cool. But for the most, most of us, that’s not going to be reality. If you want a little vacation property, I’d suggest doing what I did. You know, okay, I think you’re right. Yeah. If you don’t like camping, okay, fine. Do you like the lake? Cool. Buy some lakefront property without a building on it. Put a little cabin on it, maybe, or try camping, but something that you could sell again later on, and at least break even. Because once you get in there, and you realize, oh, this was cool when I saw it. But I didn’t realize there were going to be like partiers every weekend shooting off fireworks. I saw this on a Wednesday, on a Wednesday, you know? And that’s what I worried about it.

Tom Kubiak
And another thing we should probably at least touch on is timeshares. Yeah, so people so and the appeal of a timeshare is it’s the concept of a vacation home, but less expensive. And so there’s a lot of people who maybe don’t feel comfortable with the the investment of capital that they would have to put into a vacation home. So they say, Well, I can put, you know, $30,000 into a timeshare, and I’ll get a vacation home basically. And I cannot say strongly enough, timeshares are a bad decision. They rarely work out to your benefit. More often than not, they end up being an anchor on your finances. So please think if any of our listeners are thinking about a timeshare, and and you just need somebody to reinforce that you shouldn’t do it. Send us an email thru the podcast. And I’m sure Ian has got a way that you can do that. Because we will tell you again not to do it. It’s not a good idea.

Ian Robertson
I’ve never done a timeshare. I remember one time when I was a kid, we went to Florida, and my mom made us go to a timeshare demo because they had free doughnuts. Yeah. So she’s just like, we’re not gonna do this. But I have four kids, and they have free doughnuts. And we have nothing to do this afternoon. So I just remember sitting there eating doughnuts. And as much as my parents didn’t have the money for it, and you know, we didn’t have we didn’t have much.

Tom Kubiak
And they got talked into it.

Ian Robertson
Almost it was this close. But yeah, even they..

Tom Kubiak
Very high pressure.

Ian Robertson
Very high pressure, but even even they were like, you really can’t afford this. Yeah, so it just it just couldn’t happen. But it was amazing.

Tom Kubiak
The only timeshare that is even worth considering is the Disney Vacation Club. That’s the one that has the the most argument for it. And it’s still not a good idea. But at least it’s resellable. Like you can you can get out of it and sell it to somebody else.

Ian Robertson
That’s if you like Disney. So when I..

Tom Kubiak
And you have to like Disney.

Ian Robertson
So when I hear the word, Disney, I hear Hey, buddy, you want to be hot, uncomfortable and stand in lines all day. And then spend way way way way spend a whole bunch of money doing it. That’s all I hear.

Tom Kubiak
That’s what we should do. We should do a podcast on our trip to Disney.

Ian Robertson
So maybe we can end it on this. If you do buy a Disney timeshare. Make sure you go and they give ratings to the days of how many people are at the parks. Remember the day we were going and they..one is low. 10 is very busy. And we went on a day I was supposed to be a four, ended up being like a 10 plus. Oh my goodness, you couldn’t move.

Tom Kubiak
We couldn’t even get anything we left. We had to leave I think if I remember right.

Ian Robertson
We stayed a long time. We only stayed because you couldn’t get out because you were like shoulder to shoulder. I got run over by stroller. No joke, this guy ran me over. He’s like, get out of the way. I’m like I can’t.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, that was that was quite the trip.

Ian Robertson
But anyways, if you’re thinking about a vacation home, there’s some budget friendly ways to do it. If you’re loaded and you want to have a fancy place for some fancy scotch, it’s not just about the money it is there’s a time factor. Yeah, I think me and Tom actually agree on this one. Want to get something local, cool. Keep it within 30 to 40 minutes, something small that you can share with your family and enjoy. If you’re gonna go big and out there, maybe skip that and rent the house for a month instead. Yeah, you know, you’re gonna save money and time. Yeah, yep. And get the same feeling.

Tom Kubiak
You’ll save money. You’ll save time and you’ll get the exact same feeling without the stress.

Ian Robertson
Yep, exactly. So..

Tom Kubiak
Ian, thanks for spending some time with me.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, thank you and hopefully everybody out there’s either thinking or now not thinking about getting a vacation home. Thanks, Tom.

Tom Kubiak
Thanks, Ian. Talk to you soon. Oh, what about our dad jokes? We didn’t get a good dad joke.

Ian Robertson
We’ll have to do that next time. I’m all out of dad jokes.

Tom Kubiak
I got one for you. All right, this is it. Where do math teachers go on vacation? This is a vacation dad joke.

Ian Robertson
I don’t know.

Tom Kubiak
Time Square.

Ian Robertson
That’s terrible. What’s their favorite dessert? Pie. Okay, okay, okay.

Tom Kubiak
That’s not a vacation one. That’s a math. You gotta do a vacation one.

Ian Robertson
Okay. Did you hear about the guy that went to school? And he came back home and he failed. His mom said, Why did you fail? And he goes, Well, teacher doesn’t know math. She said what do you mean? She said pie are square. Pie aren’t square, pie are round. All right, we should end this now. This is getting bad.

Tom Kubiak
We do need to end this, it’s getting off the radar.

Ian Robertson
Later folks. Thanks for listening.

Tom Kubiak
Bye