What you’re about to read is [my] personal opinion but I do have some experience, albeit 4 years, with this issue. [I’m not referring to any owner of commercial real estate such as condos and apartments, only personal property owned by a single individual, or single family.] Let’s first define “absentee”. It’s the case where you are not present on the property, you own it and yet don’t live there. So maybe you rent it out 100% of the time, or perhaps you occupy the property for only a short time period in any given year? If something like that applies to you then this is written for you. I’m going to list this condition as one of the worst investment ideas ever, it’s up there with virtual coins and NFT’s. I’m sharing this opinion because it lands in a category known as really bad investment ideas – owning real property where you’re absent for most, if not, all of the year. So many things can go wrong and to further the discussion I can see how you, as an owner, may very well end yourself up in court. Not to mention how much you’ll be responsible for in Maintenance, Property Taxes, Property Insurance, Utilities, and the list goes on and on just about to infinity for all owners of real property. These costs are not unusual, they are a given so why add to the mix?

Thinking back, did you ever go camping back when you were young? Remember how you pitched a tent providing enough shelter to stick around for a few days? Then once the property was vacated everyone’s obligation amounted to [about] zero; consisting of just un-assembling all tents, disposing of trash and heading home. And what a great feeling freedom from all future [property] obligations meant for that once pitched tent property you called yours, right? I remember really liking that part of my many camping trip. 🙂

This is not to say that within a perfect microcosm that being [an absentee] owner can never work out. Some of you may be as lucky as my father who rented out properties when he was already well up in years and never had an issue, or at least never talked to me about one. Some of us have been that lucky while renting out multiple properties. Because some tenants will [actually] pay on time, and every time and not destroy things… I’d like to find those. No – it’s too late now, I don’t want to ever be in a position of having to rent out a property. What we’re really addressing here more than tenants is what begins to decay immediately, that is, any physical property no matter whether commercial or private, begins deteriorating the day it is closed on. That’s how stuff works, which is why there’s an accounting concept known as “depreciation”. And if you claim this on your tax return thinking you’re smarter than the average guess what happens? The IRS makes note of it and once you dispose of said property by ordinary means such as a sell, then they will come in wanting all that tax savings back in the form of what is referred to as “recapture”. That’s an ouch! “It’s not fair, and it’s not nice to blow on another guy’s dice!” quoting a well-known song by Frank Sinatra, but yet it’s reality.

How about owning a vacation home and never planning to be there much? I don’t know, I’ve never owned one but would you want to vacation in the same spot every year? If yes, then I suppose it could work. Maybe you could somehow finagle a transfer of ownership of your vacation property into a private corporation where you own at least a 51% interest? In that way you spread any future uglies that might happen, in the form of liabilities, across the books of the entire company? For me personally, hotel room(s) in the chosen vacation area still make a ton more sense. 🙂

I receive flyers in the mail regularly, I must be on someone’s mailing list. These are offers to buy raw land on the shores of lakes, most of which I’ve never heard of… which makes me wonder if anyone else has either. But, should I accept the offer to tour their homesites they promise a free gift and all just for my time. But what if I don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere? What if I’d much rather I be in the middle of “somewhere”? They don’t have any offers for that! You know the place, somewhere already populated with people, their homes and their loud automobiles and their Sunday barbecues spewing steady scents of oak, hickory and apple wood? What if? It took me awhile to realize these property solicitors don’t have those kind of deals. It’s like, “Look Mister, do you want this raw [unblemished] land, or not?” Turns out that no one yet has wanted it. And I would venture to guess they’ve talked to many people before me. Their sales pitches go something like this, “you’ll be all by yourself – you can let out a real loud belch and no one will hear you for miles!” But how about if I always liked my beer belches to be heard? After all, they are never released in vain. 🙂