WASHINGTON (March 30, 2011)—The market share of vacation- and investment-home sales held steady in 2010, although the sales volume declined with the overall market, according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.
Vacation-home sales accounted for 10% of existing and new-home sales last year, while the portion of investment sales was 17%, both unchanged from 2009, according to NAR’s 2011 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey.
A sizeable number of buyers paid cash for their vacation homes due to extraordinarily tight credit conditions, said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Nearly 60% of investment buyers paid cash in 2010, as did 36% of vacation-home buyers.
With an overall decline in home sales during 2010, the volume of 543,000 vacation-home sales was down 1.8% from 553,000 in 2009. Investment purchases fell 7.8% to 867,000 in 2010 from 940,000 the previous year. Primary residence sales declined 5.6% to 3.81 million from 4.04 million in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »