Buying a lake house as investment

[Tim Joyce]

Wife and I heard of a potential family-deal, where current Detroit Lakes owner wants to quit the snowbird game and go full-time-Florida. They're basically shutting down after this season, and we heard they wanted to list. The idea of having a property like that to use as vacation rental is intriguing, but curious to hear how others have fared in this situation.  

Price sounds like it is good for the area, based on age of house and the fact that any non-family buyer might just tear it down and start over. I hope to broach the topic of seller-financing, if they are into it; but honestly the property can probably appraise close to the asking as-is. Any bank-financing-sized down payment would be probably impossible for us right now.

For us, we'd probably keep as-is for some time due to nostalgia, using some weeks for vacation and the rest as income-generating. In future, as opportunity presents itself, we could deal with a tear down/rebuild situation, or simply sell then. In the meantime, we envision that some family members may also want in on the action, so a multi-owner situation. I would set up all legal structures myself, but curious if the numbers-running process is different for seasonal rentals.

Any advice for how this might reasonably be structured? success/horror stories?