Second Home Buying Market Remains Strong

There’s undoubtedly a discrepancy is the housing market. While an abundance of residents are filing for foreclosure because they are feeling squeezed by their Florida home loans, others are looking beyond a primary residence.

A new survey from HomePages.com reveeals a large percentage of second home buyers would as soon fly as drive to reach their vacation homes, emphasizing the fact that the location of these properties can be almost anywhere. Florida certainly has its fair share of them.

Inside the second Florida home loan market

With plenty of disposable income to spare, 21 percent of 1,300 consumers surveyed said they are considering purchasing a second home within a year, while another 42 percent say they’re considering buying within the next two to six years. This housing market is having no trouble whatsoever.

Overall, “vacation and investment homes remain a strong and prominent part of the real estate market, both as a means of providing an escape and providing supplemental short-term and long-term income,” says Ian Morris, chief executive officer of HouseValues.
Other results of the poll include:

- A quarter of respondents said they are considering a Florida home equity loan for a vacation house investment purposes, while 22 percent said they wanted one for “enjoyment,” such as weekend getaways, vacations and family use.

- Forty percent of respondents said features such as water or mountains would not be a factor because they intended to buy for investment purposes. Among those who do consider geography an important factor in where they buy, 36 percent listed proximity to water as key, followed by mountains (17 percent), golf courses (5 percent) and the desert (2 percent).

- Asked what factor would most likely cause them NOT to buy a second home, 32 percent of respondents listed rising home prices, followed by rising mortgage rates (18 percent) and job insecurity (12 percent).

Ownership of more than one home is increasingly common, notes NAR, due to peak earnings of the baby boomer segment of the population, less-than-stellar returns in other financial assets other than real estate, and popular tax incentives (including capital gains exclusions), along with Florida home loan programs that favor buying property over other investment instruments.

Those thinking of expanding into this market ought to consider a Florida home equity loan for the purposes of the transaction.