Remodeling Versus Buying a New Home

Essentially, a second home exemplifies the difference between “remodeling” and “buying” in defining the type of sanctuary the vast majority of us seek. The former implies an opportunity to get away from the routines of everyday life, from work and taxes, from the rules or particularly and functionality.

Buying a new home, by some contrast, indicates (and often demands) disciplines of planning, scheduling and meeting deadlines, if in simply a different place than where you live and work. You may travel to a vacation destination, but very few of us can truly travel as a form of vacation and reap the same benefits of relaxation and sensory decompression afforded by a second home.

There are other priorities and qualities to consider, or course, including whether you even have the personality to enjoy, much less be involved in the design and construction of a second home. In addition to a trilogy or primary considerations, a second home may someday be where you retire, serve as a family gathering place, or perhaps generate a secondary income. All of these and other factors will drive your decisions regarding where and what your second home will be and what form it will take.

Setting the Stage

This section is about home remodeling and anonymously, home reconstruction. Commonly, these terms are kept separate to differentiate their intended uses. A “home remodeling”, for instance, suggests an occasional getaway, while a “second” home implies a longer period of time, perhaps an entire season, spent in the house.

In this context though, the two terms can be inter-changed. Both certainly are different than timeshares and house-swapping clubs, housing complexes and even the owner-occupied condominiums. Unlike those options, vacation homes are stand-alone (or separated) single-family houses, designed, built for and used by their owners. They are fully functional dwellings, with no shared areas or series, intended primarily (and often solely) to be a home away from home for a particular person, couple or family.

This somewhat narrower definition of second homes is in response to how most people envision a vacation retreat. In periodic surveys conducted for the American Resort Development Association since 1990, and more recently in 1999, a single-family newly constructed home or cabin is what most folks say they’re interested in purchasing within the next ten years. Owning a vacant lot (presumably on which to eventually build a vacation home) is the second most popular choice.