Glamping Hub: $100 A Night – Is It Even Worth It? Just Enjoy It Ourselves.
May 31, 2021
by drplasticpicker
The thoughts and dreams of Southwestern Oregon and our hopefully family farm sits in the back of my mind, and makes me so happy. There is not much for me to do right now. I’m sitting on our portion of the downpayment and ready to deploy whenever it’s time. The way some people love luxury purses, is the way I love real estate. It gives me this fuzzy and warm feeling, knowing it actually grows our networth if we do it the right way – but at the same time gives me so much enjoyment in other ways that actually doesn’t cost me any money.
For exampled I am researching how much people pay for Glamping, something I’ve never done before. I’ve camped but never glamped. On GlampingHub or some site like that, a pretty normal rustic cabin rents out for $100 a night. I’ll let my family member know that. There is already a cabin on the side of the property, that may be able to be renovated pretty easily if we wanted to do that. It’s about the same size, and actually has bathroom facilities. Whether the plumbing is hooked up it’s hard to know. This particular cabin I saw on Glamping Hub used the shared bathroom facililites. I just looked up that we could usually install a composting toilet that is less than $1000 for the cabin. That would be very environmentally friendly. I never thought I’d actually get to think about buying a composting toilet! That is so wonderful.
But honestly, the entire point of this property is to have a place that our extended family can be together. And buying this property prevented us from falling into the TimeShare trap! That never made sense to me. I was just looking at timeshares on the secondary market and you pay them money to buy a “timeshare” of a property but you don’t really own the property. You can only go to the property through this complicated series of points and on dates that likely Mr. Plastic Picker and I can’t make anyway because we have two physician schedules and kids schedules to coordinate. Then you still have to pay to stay at the property through your yearly fees and such. And I did look at buying a timeshare several times in Hawaii which makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER since we already have family who will let us stay in their place in Hawaii for free anytime, and I don’t have to pay a cleaning fee or leave a tip – and there is already food in the fridge. We have 197 acres, maybe we should sell everyone a timeshare of the cabin that has yet to be renovated? See how easy it is to scam people. Except Dr. Plastic Picker, I don’t scam people because I actually go to work and earn an income. If I scammed you, I’d have to pay taxes on that scammed income anyway. And who goes to a pediatrician who is a scam-artist anyway? Babies know. They would cry when they came into the presence of someone like that. Babies have a sixth sense of good and evil. I firmly believe that. I can hold a baby and rock them to sleep pretty easy, I’m a pediatrician.
But actually thinking about this property gives me so much joy, because I can picture Mr. Plastic Picker and I and our retirement. I think we’ll still go on vacation like other doctor retirees. But now we have a place to stay and explore for weeks at a time. It will be comfortable with high-speed internet and be our own place, with things to do. But then right next door is the Umpqua National Forest there are hundreds of miles of hiking trails to keep us occupied!
Plus the land will appreciate. Historically in the county we are buying at, housing prices have appreciated 10%. This is not even considering that the timber on the property actually has value as lumber prices have gone up 400%. The actual trees on the property have real value. We will need to sustainbly harvest them to maintain the health of the forest and decrease wildfire risks, hopefully enough to pay the property taxes. I think our negotiating purchase price is actually about 50K less than the real value. The seller is pressured to sell and the financing is a bit more complicated on that big of a property which is why I think the average buyer wouldn’t want to venture into a property like this. But we are anything but the average buyer. No we are not! Dr. Plastic Picker’s extended family is not average, not when it has to do with real estate! LOL.
Plus, if you have a timeshare – do you think they are going to let you have chickens? At some point when we are living there more full time, I’m going to get chickens. Organic free range chicken eggs are like $15 a dozen! Plus remember we have the six-week turkey hunting season, and everyone is allowed three turkeys and they go for $60 a piece online if you buy free range organic turkeys. You don’t get more free range and organic then running around our 197 acre property. Plus there is fishing nearby and we had a friend go fishing for rainbow trout. I’m pretty sure I can learn how to fish. Have you ever shopped at Whole Foods? If you have shopped at Whole Foods, then do you know that everyone calls is Whole Paycheck? I’ve only ever bought one small cous cous salad at Whole Foods while I was a resident at Mans Greatest Hospital in Boston when it first opened. That place was so expensive and everyone there was preening while they were shopping. I thought to myself, this is not the answer! Anyway. If you regularly shop at Whole Foods, I’m really sorry – I can’t be your friend. It just tells me a lot about you. That is all. Anyway, at Whole Foods Rainbow Trout is $5.99 a pound! It says it is Pleo Friendly, Keto-Friendly and Gluten-Free. So is water. LOL. But Mr. Plastic Picker and I will have Rainbow Trout as well and it won’t cost us $5.99 a fillet. It will indeed be essentially free and we’ll grill it under the stars and eat it with some veggies from the garden. I don’t think any timeshare property has fishing like that around as well? If they do, then I’m sure they will charge you a premium. When we are staying on the property and we can vacancy on the renovated cabin with the composting toilet or you want to pitch a tent on the meadow, let me know if you are a true friend. You can just stay there when we are in the main house and we can commune and be happy in nature, and only talk when we want to. There is a lot of personal space on 197 acres – trust me.
But in all seriousness, I’m just happy thinking about this property. I realize we’ve just lowered our projected retirement cost by quite a bit. Mr. Plastic Picker and I think the 14 hour drive there will be easy since it’s a straight shot up North, and we were planning in the future to buy a fully electric car and hopefully with the improved infrastructure we can drive there all electric without even gas and stay there for extended periods of time helping to maintain the property, eat organic eggs from our chickens and eat fresh grilled rainbow trout. And we’ll go hiking. We don’t mind gardening too but honestly we have so many gardeners in our family between our siblings and all the sets of grandparents on both sides, that everyone is rushing to think about what trees they want to plant already on their part of the farm. I have to let my mother in law know that we’ll give them a few acres and she can plant whatever trees she wants. We need to seriously talk about it soon. Escrow will be closing soon and this won’t be just a dream but a wonderful reality.
197 acres is huge. As someone who used to own farmland I can say it’s one of the best investments in the world. 🙂 Automotive technology is changing so quickly. Which electric car would you consider to buy eventually?
Wow Thank you Liquid for stopping by! I love blogging for the new people I get to interact with! Just stopped by your blog and will stop by here and there. Mr. Plastic Picker just got a scratch on the old red Prius and he’s determined to keep on driving it for now. Yes we totally agree the technology is changing so quickly. We are kind of anti-Tesla folks just because we are contrary. We don’t really know yet and haven’t really looked into it. If you have any suggestions, I’ve love to hear them? Ideally we’d like something the size of a small SUV that is all electric and reliable.