- Zillow data reveals vacation home markets rising in
popularity with page views of for-sale listings up nearly 50
percent from last year.
- Listings in areas that include the Jersey Shore, N.J., Cape Cod, Mass., Key
West, Fla. and Myrtle Beach,
S.C., are among the most "favorited" in the U.S.
- Pending sales in more than half of vacation-home markets are up
at least 30% from last year, compared to pending sales nationwide
up 22.2%.
SEATTLE, Oct. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Impacts from the
coronavirus pandemic have rippled out to traditional vacation
destinations, which are seeing increased interest from homebuyers
as shifting priorities and preferences transform where and how
people want to live.
Page views of for-sale listings are up nearly 50% from a year
ago in metro areas typically considered vacation destinations,
defined as metros with at least 65,000 people and five times more
vacation homes than the U.S. as a whole. That's compared to a 37%
increase in page views nationally. Vacation metros seeing an
uptick in demand include places like the Jersey Shore area, Myrtle Beach, S.C., Key West, Fla., Lake
Tahoe, Nev.*, Cape Cod,
Mass.*, and Park City,
Utah.*
Newly pending home sales are also climbing in many of these
vacation markets, with 90 percent of the markets analyzed
experiencing growth and half up at least 30% from last year. Places
like Salisbury, Md. (near
Ocean City), Traverse City, Mich., located along the shores
of Lake Michigan, and Brainerd, Minn., a forest and lake region
along the Mississippi River, were among areas following this
trend. Those three areas all saw year-over-year pending sales
increases of more than 30%.
"As millions of office workers transitioned to working from home
during the pandemic, many of them reconsidered where they might
like to live now that the commute no longer mattered," said Zillow
senior economist Jeff Tucker.
"Vacation towns beckoned to many buyers, offering natural amenities
like proximity to the ocean and mountains, along with robust retail
and restaurant industries to serve traditional seasonal visitors.
It's too early to tell how many of these new vacation town home
buyers are moving permanently or planning to return after the
pandemic -- they may not even know yet themselves -- but owning a
second home in a traditional vacation area provides a lot of
long-term flexibility."
It's not just page views and home sale growth that are up in
those hot vacation spots. Homes for sale in those metros also are
seeing more "favorites" on Zillow, which is a way for people to
catalog listings so they can return to or share them with someone
later. Zillow research has shown highly-saved homes sell faster and
for more money.
Listings for homes for sale in Key
West, for example, are saved 8.7 times more often than
listings nationwide. In Hilton Head
and the Poconos, listings see more than five times the typical
share of favorites. The next four vacation areas with the highest
share of favorites are all in Florida -- Panama
City, Naples, Fort Myers and Punta
Gorda all seeing at least three times more favorites than
the nation at large.
"The recent spike could be due to international travel
restrictions and the ability to work and school from home," said
Tommy Mack, a Best of Zillow Premier
Agent with Coastal Collection Real Estate in the Florida Keys. "I
have many new clients who say they've always wanted to move here
and now they can because of changes in day-to-day life from
Covid."
Vacation spots in the Northeast also are heating up.
Ocean City, N.J., on the
Jersey Shore, has the highest
share of vacation homes, at almost 50%. It also sees more than
twice the rate of listing favorites as the U.S. average, and
pending home sales are up 38.1%. East
Stroudsburg, Pa., in the Poconos region and well-known for
its natural scenic beauty, saw a 90% increase in page views — with
home values expected to grow 5.6% in the next year, compared with
4.9% throughout the state.
The ability to work remotely allowed Emily Rush, a 27-year-old project manager for a
market research firm near Philadelphia, to buy her first home in
Ocean City, Maryland.
"I love the beach and I would rather be here," said Rush, who
used to spend her summers vacationing in Ocean City. "Since I can successfully work
remotely, I wanted to live in a place where I can disconnect after
work. I feel more relaxed near the water and that's allowed me to
have a better work-life balance while working from home. It also
felt like a safe investment because if I eventually return to the
city, I will still have a great rental property or vacation
home."
Close proximity to a beach, lake or ski area is a common theme
among the top 5 hottest vacation areas accumulating the most Zillow
favorites, including Cape Cod
(No.2), Brainerd, Minn. (No. 3),
Park City, Utah (No. 4), and
Naples, Fla. (No. 5).
Editor's Note: In this release,
"Park City," "The Poconos,"
"Lake Tahoe" and "Cape Cod" refer to the Heber, Utah,
East Stroudsburg, Penn.,
Truckee, Calif., & Barnstable
Town, Mass. metropolitan areas, respectively, as defined by
the Census Bureau. We chose to use the former names for
familiarity.
Metropolitan
Area
|
Share Vacation
Homes of All
Housing Units
|
Ratio of
Favorites
Compared to U.S.
|
Year over year
growth in page
views
|
U.S.
|
3.9%
|
NA
|
37.1%
|
Ocean City,
N.J.
|
49.5%
|
2.3 times
|
37.9%
|
Cape Cod,
Mass.
|
36.8%*
|
2.9 times
|
58.5%
|
Brainerd,
Minn.
|
35.6%
|
1.6 times
|
59.6%
|
Park City,
Utah
|
35.2%*
|
1.0 times
|
53.5%
|
Naples,
Fla.
|
30.2%
|
4.0 times
|
59.3%
|
Marinette,
Wisc.
|
29.5%
|
0.7 times
|
37.9%
|
Salisbury,
Md
|
27.7%
|
2.4 times
|
34.7%
|
Key West,
Fla.
|
24.9%
|
8.7 times
|
72.4%
|
Traverse City,
Mich.
|
24.8%
|
2.9 times
|
41.9%
|
Sevierville,
Tenn.
|
24.0%
|
2.7 times
|
42.0%
|
The Poconos,
Pa.
|
23.9%
|
5.2 times
|
89.7%
|
Myrtle Beach,
S.C.
|
23.6%
|
2.7 times
|
18.1%
|
Lebanon,
NH
|
23.1%
|
3.1 times
|
66.3%
|
Fort Myers,
Fla.
|
22.7%
|
3.7 times
|
53.3%
|
Show Low,
Ariz.
|
22.2%
|
1.5 times
|
60.9%
|
Lake Tahoe,
Calif.
|
21.6%*
|
1.4 times
|
33.1%
|
Panama CIty,
Fla.
|
20.5%
|
4.1 times
|
74.4%
|
Watertown,
N.Y.
|
20.1%
|
1.7 times
|
66.7%
|
Punta Gorda,
Fla.
|
20.0%
|
3.1 times
|
51.8%
|
Hilton Head,
S.C.
|
19.6%
|
5.6
|
60.0%
|
Methodology
Zillow analyzed 2019 1-year American Community Survey data from
the U.S. Census Bureau to determine which metropolitan areas had
the highest concentration of vacation homes out of all housing
units. The top 20 markets with the highest share of vacation homes
were used as a subset to determine if these "vacation towns" were
becoming more popular than the US overall. Zillow utilized "save"
data to get the number of times housing units were saved on
zillow.com as an indication of interest. The sum of all saves
over a one-month time span (August 23-Sept.
23, 2020) was compared to the total number of housing
units in the metropolitan area, and this ratio was then compared to
the value for the US overall. Places with a higher ratio of saves
to housing units than the US are deemed to have increased interest.
Page view data compared views on for-sale listings in
August 2020 and August 2019. Only for for-sale listings were
included, and page views by agents and other industry professionals
were excluded to better reflect only consumer demand for homes.
Additionally, Zillow utilized weekly newly pending sales data
for the week ending Sept. 26 to
determine the year-over-year change in newly pending sales counts
for the vacation towns compared to the US overall.
About Zillow
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building an on-demand real estate experience. Whether selling,
buying, renting or financing, customers can turn to Zillow's
businesses to find and get into their next home with speed,
certainty and ease.
In addition to for-sale and rental listings, Zillow Offers buys
and sells homes directly in dozens of markets across the country,
allowing sellers control over their timeline. Zillow Home Loans,
our affiliate lender, provides our customers with an easy option to
get pre-approved and secure financing for their next home
purchase.
Millions of people visit Zillow Group sites every month to start
their home search, and now they can rely on Zillow to help them
finish it — with the same confidence, ease and empowerment they've
come to expect from real estate's most trusted brand.
Zillow is owned and operated by Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:Z and
ZG).
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SOURCE Zillow