Buying a vacation home abroad can be one of the most exciting times in your life. You might have been saving up money for years, perhaps even decades, and now is finally the time to make the leap and JUST DO IT.
When looking to buy a vacation home abroad, there are 5 things in particular that you should be thinking about. Below, we have tailored these tips to Norway.
Valuation
Before actually deciding on what vacation home to get, it’s important to get the valuation right. Doing this might save you thousands of dollars, as you don’t want to buy a place for a price well over what it’s worth.
Eiendomsmegler for deg, the best company in Norway that helps people with the valuation of their cabins and vacation homes, has written an article called Verdivurdering hytte og fritidsbolig, with a lot of useful advice for getting your additional home at the best price.
Refurbishment and storage
Once you’ve bought your new home, you need to decide whether you’re going to perform some refurbishment. If you choose to go for it, you need to find a place to store everything in the meantime. Are you in need of renting a storage place, or can you cover your things with a tarpaulin?
There are also many services which easily brings, stores, and returns your stuff. This will be relevant if, for example, you’re using one moving firm to get your stuff from your own country and into Norway, and then you want to use a Norwegian service to get your things to the vacation home.
Choosing what to bring
When moving to an additional home, you will quickly discover that there are a lot of things in your old house that you don’t need there anymore, and that you can bring with you. Use this opportunity to clean out your old home, so that there will be fewer things to buy for your new one.
At the same time, you could also sell the stuff you no longer need, striking two birds with one stone. This might take some time, however, so you’d be wise to start early.
Important services
Do you want things like electricity, TV, and internet in your new home, or do you want it to be more like an old-fashioned cabin from the late 1800s? If you want to have internet, you should check whether fiber cables are available in your area, or whether you need a satellite solution.
Other practical matters
If you’d like to have things like a mailbox and a doorbell, you should place your name on them. Hang up signs with the names of everyone who is going to live there, including children. Remember also to remove any names or marks from the old mailbox.