Vacation Home Sales Highest in a Decade

Vacation home sales spiked in 2014 to their highest levels in more than a decade. NAR released its 2015 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey on existing- and new-home transactions in 2014. An estimated 1.13 million vacation homes were sold last year, or 21 percent of all transactions in 2014. This marks the highest number since NAR began the survey in 2003. Vacation sales increased 57.4 percent from 717,000 in 2013. Continued stock-market gains and low interest rates helped fuel the increase. Investment-home sales in 2014 dropped 7.4 percent to an estimated 1.02 million in 2014 from 1.10 million in 2013. Owner-occupied purchases decreased 12.8 percent to 3.23 million last year from 3.70 million in 2013. The sales estimates are based on responses from nearly 2,000 U.S. adults who purchased a residential property in 2014, not including institutional investment activity. An overwhelming number of investment buyers (86 percent) and vacation buyers (85 percent) say now is a good time to purchase real estate. NAR has more details on the survey’s findings.