Posted by Hugh Nations Signing Agents of Austin on 8/10/06 12:27pm
Msg #138007

Second home sales falter. From the NY Times

Thought this excerpt might be of interest.

As the overall housing market weakens, the interest in buying vacation homes, from the most modest condominiums on up, appears to be falling faster. Unlike most metropolitan areas — where underlying demand and the normal turnover in primary homes as a result of job moves, new households and family changes provide a more solid floor under prices — the second-home market relies on a different set of motivations that tends to exaggerate booms and busts.

“Second-home buying is very discretionary,” said Edward Leamer, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “There is no force of demographics that is pushing people into buying homes as there is in primary home markets.”

In second-home markets around the country, the number of sales is shrinking even as the properties on the market increase. Prices at all levels are softening, and in a few places recently have begun dropping.