The House That Sat Empty for Six Months a Year

At a lunch with friends, one of them asked, "What does the house cost you?"

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a woman named Lucille, 69. She spends October to March in a coastal town abroad. The other six months she lives in her own house, which is paid off and worth about US$500,000. Each October she ties a blue tarp over the porch chairs and locks the door.

At a lunch with friends, one of them asked, "What does the house cost you?"

"Nothing," Lucille said. "It's paid off."

"Even when you're gone?"

Lucille took out a pencil and wrote the year on a napkin. Property tax, insurance, upkeep, utilities kept on and a security check came to US$14,900. That is about US$1,240 a month, over twelve months.

Then she tried one more division. She divided the year by the months she slept there.

Lucille looked at the top row for a while. "Twenty-four hundred and eighty dollars a month to sleep in my own bed."

Gus, her friend since high school, did a little arithmetic of his own. "Say a one-bedroom in a mid-priced town abroad costs about US$1,170 a month on a six-month stay. That is an illustration, not a quote. Your house costs a little more than twice that for the months you use it."

"The apartment has one bedroom," Lucille said. "The house has three. What would a place like my house cost to rent?"

Gus looked it up. A home like hers would rent for about US$3,000 a month, plus utilities of about US$200. So the choice for the six months at home was not the house against a one-bedroom.

"So my house costs less than a home like it," Lucille said. "And more than twice what a small place does."

She added the other side of the page. If she sold, the US$470,000 would earn about US$18,800 a year, or US$1,570 a month, and she would rent for twelve months. On a one-bedroom at home and the apartment abroad, she would come out about US$27,400 a year ahead of keeping the house. On a home like her own, about US$14,500 ahead. The second figure is the price of keeping three bedrooms and a garden.

Lucille went home and sat on the porch with the tarp still folded in her lap. The garden was the reason she kept the house. Her three rose bushes bloom a second time in November, and she had never seen it. She had always left in October, because that was when she left.

She worked out what she wanted. If she stayed home two more months, the yearly bill would not change much, because tax, insurance and upkeep stay about the same whether or not anyone is home. A month at home would add about US$200 in utilities and save the US$1,170 she pays for the apartment. She chose to leave in December instead, which puts her at home for eight months and in time for the roses.