Vacation homes are being dumped at a rapid rate as fresh fears of a housing market crash — and a shrinking pool of renters — rattle sellers.
The number of people buying second homes has plunged to its lowest level since records began, and is under a third of what it was during the pandemic boom.
A toxic mix of sky-high mortgage rates, soaring maintenance costs, and a widespread return-to-office push is fueling the trend.
In 2024, just 86,604 mortgages were issued for second homes across the United States.
That’s a 5 percent drop from the year before and down dramatically from the 258,289 in 2021.
At the height of the pandemic, remote workers who could afford it were fleeing big cities in droves and buying up homes in sunny spots like Florida and California.
Those days are over.
Vacation homes (second homes) made up just 2.6 percent of all US mortgages last year, according to a new analysis from Redfin. That’s half what it was in 2020.