Time-sharing accommodation, on rotational basis, as you described, sounds like a fantastic new spin on flag theory. But since some countries are naturally better destinations for certain seasons, I guess it may be hard to reconcile the expectations of all of the members of a sharing syndicate. Nonetheless, it's a great idea.
Yeah the seasons thing was always an issue for us. Might be able to selectively choose places based on where the season is longest so there's a minimal period when it's undesirable.
That would be a dream come true Michael! One cheapskate way of achieving this mobility is by acquiring a number of 'pocket yachts' kept on low priced moring buoys. Then when you're in town you can do a deal with a marina for easy access, water & power and on the weekends go sailing and diving! It still makes sense to maintain residences in more affordable colder climate countries and use the yachts in more expensive temperate locations. However this idea of 'collective house-sharing' is worth considering. Must admit after a month or two I feel like I'm becoming stale, keeping on the move stimulates my whole spirit - I even sleep more sound new surroundings... Thank you for another interesting video. I don't know how you get your ideas but keep them coming - we always find them thought provoking. F
Thank you for your support and for sharing your insight, Franki! Definitely an interesting suggestion. What are some countries you've been to recently? Any favorites? And of course, feel free to share any ideas for future videos :)
I've found if staying 3 months or less per year in one city or country, Airbnb is the way to go, even for luxury residences or apartments. Monthly and multi-monthly rates are in most cases cheaper, and you can even reach out to the owner and negotiate a better multi month deal before deciding on any given place.
I find Airbnb is a radically inferior set up to one I'd have myself. The main starting point is workspace. I've yet to see a single Airbnb with great ergonomics. You can do things to try to improve this like traveling with external monitors, pillows for chairs, devices to elevate and tilt work stations, etc but that's quite cumbersome and even then isn't nearly as good as a proper home set up. Then you run into issues with generally inferior beds.the biggest issue though is staff. You want cleaning staff, maybe a chef, etc and you're done. Of course you can easily do without these things but the pay off in quality of life is super high. Airbnb has never been great for me because of that stuff... That and it's usually not that cheap relative to what you're getting, though it depends where.
@@OffshoreCitizen External monitors? Are you into day trading? I can't think of any other reason why you'd need several monitors in your hotel room. :)
4:44 How to say we were broke; We lacked the financial means 😉👌🏽. Good one On a serious note, this idea of living internationally with luxury is flirting with my mind. It's totally worth it. However, finding people alike and organizing things may be challenging and not easy.
Sounds like a luxury timeshare offering? We were thinking of doing something similar - price of admission, a property plus a centralised fund for annual expenses. Good in theory but then people or specifically people's 'partners/husbands/wives'' ... a 10 bedroom house? My wife said... sounds like a reality TV show??? PLUS... as people get older some may prefer a longer term place to live.
Yeah I think it's much better and easier for younger single people. Though I suppose families could swap places. I think it's also easier with less people living there. The optimal on reflection might be if you've got a few big places with one person who lives in each specific place full time and then others visit and stay in parts of the others and basically participate in a membership club.
Interesting ideas there. I'd always thought it's better to have one main house and apartments in other places where they have security and housekeeping and you can rent them out to make some money as well.
Yeah that's definitely one way to go and managed Airbnb helps with that for sure. The biggest issue I have there is allowing a steady flow of strangers into my house, but it is an option
Interesting idea Mike. How easy is it to hire staff in Europe, in particular Italy? I'm thinking caretaker/cleaner, chef & gardener. Are they typically locals or does one need to recruit from other parts of Europe? Would be great to get your thoughts on these kind of practical matters that would affect the Expat lifestyle when moving to Europe. 😊
We always hire locally. It isn't easy. You need people you trust and who do a good job, which usually takes quite a lot of searching, screening, training, and management. Huge pay off when you get it right but quite a bit of work up front. Staff was always the toughest part in trying to do this stuff when we tried before.
The only thing that stopping me from moving to Portugal is to have a caregivers / helpers in Portugal . I need to have someone with me on a daily basis for health reasons
This concept sounds intereting and appealing to me but I think it can't be so loose and casual for practical reasons: utility bills often need to be in one person's name and he ensures they're paid on time, dealing with the local authorities for local residents tax etc. If the 8 people are family members or close life-long friends, then it can be less formal. I think it needs to be managed by one, ideally one of the 8 who stays there more or less permanently. He should be compensated properly. I also think select few paying guests could make it pay for all running costs, depending on location. Issue of maintenance and costs needs agreed and fixed in advance as later parties who didn't spend a lot of time there maybe unwilling to pay 1000s for maintenance, decorating, pool costs, heating and cooling etc etc. It might be more difficult to insure such property.
Good observations. Some of it is of course addressed by finding like minded people and of course each property can have a responsible party it just makes it easier when you aren't relying on lots of random untrusted guests and instead have a very predictable known guest with some sort of game theory between them (ie you're taking care of my place because I'm taking care of yours) Lots of places bills could be swapped (ie we agree that whoever is there at the time is responsible for the bills but they are paid by the other person probably on auto pay for ease) Insurance is an interesting one, conceivably you'd need to insure it as a rental unit. In practice the part we found hardest to deal with was not any of that but rather than staff. Maintaining, training, managing, etc staff on a regular basis is really tough you almost need enough scale or virtually no scale, not really sure that's a part we never really cracked and was always a struggle
Another excellent topic, although I echo the comment below that I doubt this specific proposition has been done successfully. But let's say you want to live in Bulgaria, Montenegro, Georgia and, say, a cheaper place in France or the US... (to give a somewhat random example). I think you could get a satisfactorily nice portfolio of four to five properties for 500-600k€ if you hunted around enough. Obviously houses are more difficult to manage, but you can buy a big apartment and renovate them to a high level for a very reasonable cost in many places. People have all sorts of preferences, but I think my goal is to have a primary residence (possibly even rented!), plus two second residences in reasonable places with low property taxes, and the rest investment properties. I'll be ready to implement this next year, I just have to figure out where for the second residences. I'm eyeing a nice little beach house in Montenegro for 45,000€ as an option...
Yeah I think one of the biggest challenges we've found in practice is maintaining staff. Owning places isn't really the issue although if you want top notch places it adds up quickly. Whereas a €2 million in Bulgaria might be affordable three of them spread around the world is tougher. The logistical challenge though becomes the full time staff, who you could bring with you but often at significant cost and some major disadvantages
To me it sounds a bit like a VIP luxury airbnb type of concept. Everyone can rent one airbnb but not everyone should rent this concept. When registering you should prove you are worth something. And if a "client" wants to adhere to this service, maybe it could be a monthly fixed payment for the number of months you want to live like that, and it would allow you access to the calendar where you could basically plan one year ahead. And maybe there should be a video conference with all new clients. And maybe it will eventually create a global community of successful people who have similar lifestyles. My humble life experience tells me too many thinking heads may lead to unhappiness. Maybe I didn't meet the right people yet.
You know I prefer to airbnb my non primary resident houses and block out the dates I want to stay a year in advance. Also love home swap etc already exists for house swaps.
I want 100% ownership, control and convenience, so the only option for me is to buy a property, staff it, and use it as an AirBNB or a small inn or hotel, while I'm away. I don't like partial ownership or time-sharing, I want full ownership and full control. Or to buy a large property and rent a small part of it to a government agency, like the MI6, the DEA, or the FBI, etc., so I get security, upkeep, and income to pay the taxes.
Not in practice no and their services (house keeping, food, etc tend to be a huge rip off, though it shows the market is willing to pay). They do give you certain parts for sure and taking the ease off on staff is arguably a huge value proposition. But it's not so great for flowing between them it's more like having a few places which are empty when you're not there. I think the concept is right but the margins are too high (basically needs to be community owned) and you need a better process for optimization flowing between them so it's almost like you only are paying for 1 place but have access to a number.
It's hard to comment on that as the situation is ever-changing. Have you seen our video on Mexico ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-caiNRUTJ19Y.html ?
