Re: 1031 rental to rental, check into short term vacation rentals (like AirBnb/VRBO)
Any time you are there and actually working on the place (repairs and maintenance) don’t count as personal usage and, as @sherpa said, renovation project times of shutting down the short term rentals also would not count against your days.
I think when people talk about getting house projects getting done before retirement they mainly mean working a bit longer to cover the expense easily, not have worry of dipping into savings later.
@colorado_mom, postponing retirement to cover expenses makes sense to explain why the incomes would be different and thus people might say “we are going to incur this expense before retirement.” Thanks.
I don’t get the sense that people are postponing retirement to get house projects done. I think it’s the psychological ease of 1) being able to pay for it while income is still coming in; and 2) getting all your ducks in a row, i.e. finish “working” on your house before you retire just like you finish your actual job before you retire.
Plus some people may want to downsize or move right away after retiring so they want to get their house fixed up beforehand.
Or perhaps if the project is more expensive than anticipated, one can extend work some to cover that extra expense.
But some people may want to do house projects after retirement because they would have time to DIY some of it. That would mostly apply to those in building-related professions for larger projects, although someone else handy at such things can DIY smaller things.
^^^ Or oversee the subs rather than hiring a general.
H is planning on retiring soon. We are not delaying it to PAY for home improvements, but in looking at available funds, we have a list of designated expenses we see coming that we need to put money aside for at some point. Home improvements is one. So are weddings for 2 Ds and maybe a new car. Just part of being sure we have our bases covered.
H has been doing endless deferred maintenance on our house since he retired in 2012/2013. It gives him personal satisfaction and he refuses to hire folks he won’t do things exactly as he would. It probably is costing more in tools than if we hired to get the work done, but he’s happy so I’m happy.
@scmom12 How much are you budgeting for a wedding? I have a niece in AZ who recently had a wedding, and I think we would have to budget 3x what I was planning on budgeting to match their spend. :neutral:
How much did the niece’s wedding cost, do you know?
Around $60K for about 150-200 guests, I think. It was at one of the golf resorts. I may be way off.
As the topic turns to weddings, could I ask that those who have had adult children marry weigh in on current trends in funding provided by families of grooms? We have only one ds, and I am just wondering, if and when he marries, if we are going to be expected to pay for half.
We attended a wedding last August. My best guess from snooping out the venue and available info online, was that it cost at least $150,000 - perhaps more! Our friends (parents of the groom) did not contribute above the traditional items (rehearsal dinner, bride’s bouquet, minister fee, etc). This was because the bride’s parents wanted total control. On the other hand, we have other friends who immediately volunteered to pay for half of the their son’s wedding so they could have equal input about everything! How do parents of a future groom anticipate how much should be set aside??
$150K? Was it lavish, huge?
$150K. LOL. No way.
My DS and his future wife largely paid for their wedding themselves. We paid for the photographer, which was around $3500.
They did a small wedding at a restaurant, < 50 people, and we had zero input, other than we got to invite a few close friends.
In fact they got mad at us when we offered to pay for a larger wedding so we could invite more of our families.
$150k (even $60k), gulp. I think I will encourage D to seek an Asian husband (most Asian cultures, including Chinese, traditionally have the groom’s family pay) and S an American bride.
My druthers is to just write a check for D and S, and they can decide what they want to do with the money. Will probably get vetoed by W.
I plan to give my kids some money that they and any fiancé can decide how to spend. I have no idea what weddings cost these days but suspect there’s a huge range.
It’s never made sense to me that one family pays all and the other pays none.
Most extravagant wedding we ever went to was my DW’s cousin. $250k at least.
It was in Westchester County, the FoB tented his entire back yard (dining tent, happy hour tent, cooking tent, with connecting tents) and brought in portable toilets with gold plated fixtures. 6 ft high table flower arrangements, 4 bands, at dinner there were two dedicated waiters per table of 10 people. It’s the most over the top thing I’ve ever been to.
The meal was probably $200/plate, and my daughter, god love her, was in her picky phase and wouldn’t touch it. So the kitchen whipped her up a plate of plain pasta, no sauce. Most expensive pasta ever. 
ETA: there were less than 200 people at this wedding. FoB is loaded…
4 bands?!
Yep. String quartet for the service, happy hour band, dinner band, and dancing/party band.