Last week’s post reported on first-time home buyers from the February survey for the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).   According to the same source, second homes (i.e., homes sold to buyers who are not going to occupy the home year-round, but use it as a vacation home, investment property, etc.) account for 15 percent of new single-family home sales.  Weighted by builder size (single-family homes started in 2020), 65 percent of the builders reported that at least 5 percent of their homes were second homes.  As noted above, the overall average was 15 percent.

According to NAHB’s analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey reported in a late 2020 post, there were 7.5 million second homes in the U.S. in 2018.  At that time, this accounted for 5.5 percent of all homes in the country.  So second homes are disproportionately represented in new single-family sales compared to their share in the existing housing stock.

Tags: economics, home building, housing, second homes, vacation homes