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Where are vacation homes located in the US?
- AdventureMouse 1y agoTL;DR In Florida
- the__alchemist 1y agoAnd less dramatically, states that have a coast (ocean, gulf, or large lake)
- quickthrowman 1y agoOr an abundance of lakes like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which are also Great Lakes states. Finland also has a high amount of vacation homes on lakeshore property, and I would guess that pretty much any area with glacial lakes within hours of population centers will have lots of vacation homes.
- tzs 1y agoThat's the TL;DR for the least interesting part of the article since most would expect Florida to have the most. It's well known as a major state to retire to, and many of the things that make a place attractive as a retirement destination also make it attractive as a vacation home location. And it is a high population state so when comparing by absolute numbers it would be the most obvious candidate for most vacation homes. The interesting part is where it looks at percentage of homes in the state that are vacation homes. Florida is high by that measure too at 8.2%, but behind Maine and Vermont which are each over 15%, and New Hampshire at over 10%. It is even a little behind Alaska (8.9%) and Delaware (8.6%). I bet not many people would have guessed that Alaska has a higher percentage of vacation homes that Florida. Hawaii is also interesting. It has twice the population of Alaska, but only slightly more vacation homes (31.6k vs 29.2k).
- fn-mote 1y ago> Hawaii is also interesting. It has twice the population of Alaska, but only slightly more vacation homes (31.6k vs 29.2k). Common sense reasoning: people cannot afford to have their vacation home in Hawaii. High prices, long and expensive flights.
- fragmede 1y agoYes but it's Hawaii. Common sense reasoning only lets you conclude that rich people have vacation homes in Hawaii, not some specific percentage relative to the rest of the states. I bet it if the math was done based on vacation land area, Hawaii would come up near the top, given Lanai. Probably places like Montana too.
- radpanda 1y ago> I bet it if the math was done based on vacation land area, Hawaii would come up near the top, given Lanai I’d be shocked if the parcels that Larry Ellison owns on Lanai are classified in a way that would show up as a vacation home. Typically rich large landowners in Hawaii are “gentleman farmers” who (ab)use agricultural tax loopholes. https://jacobin.com/2023/06/agriculture-property-tax-break-use-value-assessment-superrich-mark-zuckerberg-investment https://jacobin.com/2023/06/agriculture-property-tax-break-u...
- matwood 1y agoFL, ME, and VT also allow for weather arbitrage. People winter in FL and summer in places like ME and VT.
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- 42772827 1y agoThe largest generation in US history is retiring and buying property in the state with no income tax.
- ceejayoz 1y agoAnd a corresponding level of services.
- cpursley 1y agoThis is not even logical, retired people don't have incomes. Anyways, they get them with insane property taxes.
- koolba 1y agoNot quite. Retired people have deferred income in IRAs and 401(k)s that can be claimed at their leisure after 59.5 years old. So if you deferred taxes from a high tax State and then get the income in a no-tax State, you saved on taxes.
- karakot 1y agoIncome from Social Security benefits and 401(k)s are taxable.
- righthand 1y agoDepends on what you mean by retired. In the traditional sense you’re correct, retired people don’t have income. In the legal sense retirement just means the person is of age to collect benefits. But there is also the question of type of income. If a retired person owns property and sells it, that is income subject to capital gains tax. If a person is retired but still owns the business or is even still a board member, they’re still working in a sense and gaining shares. There are plenty of “retired” people who are “working” and have income.
- thechao 1y agoDear map makers who show us by-state break-downs: normalize by the population. The first map tells me this: New York, Florida, and Texas have large populations.
- rufus_foreman 1y agoSecond map is "Percent of housing units that are vacation homes".
- jowea 1y agoIs that appropriate in this case? I would expect lots of vacation homes be owned by people out of state.
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- ghaff 1y agoI expect there are exceptions like Manhattan/Long Island. Maybe Denver and a ski condo. But, generally, people are looking for something different in a vacation home from their residence, whether climate or activities that aren't especially nearby for a weekend trip.
- fragmede 1y ago
- roxolotl 1y agoI’m glad that Maine lives up to its Vacationland slogan
- unsnap_biceps 1y agoI knew numerous people that have a vacation home in Florida due to their parents retiring there and then passing away. They decide to hold onto the house/condo as an investment rather than using it in any way. Given how many people were retiring to Florida, I wonder how many vacation homes there are due to this rather than being the preferred purchasing location for younger generations.
- brudgers 1y agoIf you are have an objective squint, a lot of vacation homes have wheels. Per Google AI just prior to pasting: As of 2024, there are an estimated 11.2 million RV-owning households in the U.S., according to Emergency Assistance Plus. That's more than double the 4.8 million mentioned in the article...and theoretically some households could own more than two. But modulo RV's are also used for work travel particularly when it comes to construction. Like anything relating to housing and real-estate, it's complicated.
- khuey 1y agoThis is interesting, but one axis it's missing is that in some places the "vacation homes" aren't actually habitable year round. Quite a few cabins in Maine are neither insulated nor heated for the winters, are only accessible via roads that aren't maintained during the winter, etc. I'm not familiar with the area but I would guess that Minnesota's Lake Country and other similar places have the same thing going on.
- scythe 1y agoThis also occurs in the Rockies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal,_Gunnison_County,_Colorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal,_Gunnison_County,_Colo...
- garciasn 1y agoHappens here in MN too. I own a vacation home that used to be a fishing resort in the 40s-70s and now shares water / septic with 5 other cabins; we turn the water off mid-Oct to end of April because the lines are only buried about 2 feet deep. Having a three-season place is pretty common here.
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- terminalshort 1y agoI suspect the "vacation" homes on Manhattan are really mostly empty luxury units for foreign rich people to park money in the US. "Billionaires Row" near Central Park is half empty for just this reason.
- vintermann 1y agoShower thought, maybe bitcoin is actually good for the environment, if it replaces even more wasteful ways of trying to park wealth.
- czhu12 1y agoIt’s not really “parking” wealth since property taxes are still collected every year on these properties, which fund other city programs, unlike other asset classes like stocks and crypto. Presumably if the residents don’t even live there, then they are massive net contributors to the tax base
- xhkkffbf 1y agoA lot of vacation towns have pretty good school systems thanks to the fact that many of the people who pay the real estate tax don't send their kids to the schools.
- vintermann 1y agoWell, crypto "leaks" too, to things like power companies and GPU manufacturers. That's made up for in growth of the value of the idle asset. The value, though, relies on the idea that some time in the future the asset can be used as something more than an asset to sit on - e.g, people could live there. Currently though, it's unused for that so I think it's fair to call it idle.
- mancerayder 1y agoBitcoin goes up and down in wild, multi month and year swings. Manhattan real estate (condos at least) go only one direction.
- snowwrestler 1y agoThe article cites the availability of air conditioning as a major factor in vacation home trends. Prior to AC, escaping heat was the main purpose to have a vacation home. That’s why so many vacation homes are near old major cities like Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, etc. In the summer, families with money escaped to the mountains or the beach, where it was much more pleasant during the hot months. I would guess that another huge factor has been the decline in the real cost of air travel. It’s now cheap enough that people with money can reasonably expect to fly somewhere for every vacation they want to take. You don’t need a condo near the local ski resort if you can fly to a different one every winter. In fact, I feel buying property in one vacation spot is starting to look more like an anchor than an escape hatch. Keeping capital in securities instead is more liquid and less expensive (stocks don’t have roofs or plumbing). Let someone else own the hotel or AirBnB or VRBO. I’ll fly in and rent it just for the vacation. This mindset may partially explain why vacation home ownership has not “kept up” with the growth in real wealth.
- MrDarcy 1y agoThis is a win win win for all involved, owner, renter, and Airbnb. I converted stocks into a vacation home on puget sound and rent it out when we aren’t using it. Demand is high enough that we don’t need to rent it out months in advance so we still feel like it’s mostly ours and we’re not just another guest fitting into Airbnb’s schedule. To your point I liked the liquidity of equities but it has been nice to do something with it beyond just watching a number in a spreadsheet. If we want a change in scenery it’s a wash to rent our own place out and stay in another.
- yieldcrv 1y agoLiquidity is a major factor for me thats kept me out of real estate in the past, have the money burning AI buyers helped make home trading more liquid?
- mancerayder 1y agoSupply and demand makes investments liquid. If there's no demand you're stuck trying to sell. If there's no supply you'll overpay. Why AI?
- tayo42 1y agoIf I got a vacation home it would probably be in Puerto Rico. Not part of the analysis. Then figure out a way to get out of income tax.
- toast0 1y agoIf you are a bone fide resident of Puerto Rico, you generally aren't subject to federal income tax. The commonwealth has an income tax though... depending on your income, it might be more or less than the federal tax; the top rate is lower, but the brackets are smaller so you get to the top rate sooner.
- furyofantares 1y agoI'd guess the ones in Alaska are rentals for seasonal workers. I understand there are tourist areas that are largely unpopulated in the winter and populated mostly by seasonal workers in the summer (some of whom work in Hawaii the other half of the year).
- phkahler 1y agoThere are a number of retired people that bounce between Michigan and Florida (or Arizona) depending on the season. You might say they have 2 vacation homes :-)
- owenversteeg 1y agoThe most interesting part of this is the map of census tracts that shows how most vacation homes are tightly grouped. For example, Florida has a lot of vacation homes (8% of the state's housing vs 3% nationwide), but the vast majority of Florida census tracts have a tiny proportion and vacation homes are the majority in a few small areas. In some areas, the proportion of vacation homes seems to follow population density (gulf coast of Florida), and in other areas it follows the _inverse_ of population density (northern Maine.) What I think would be really interesting is a map of distance to primary home by census tract. Obviously Florida vacation homeowners are mostly from far away and in New England they live closer, but what about all the other areas?
- cwmoore 1y agoThis[0] might provide some context to your question, links to the New York Times Connectedness map: [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90239274/infographic-did-facebook-really-connect-the-world https://www.fastcompany.com/90239274/infographic-did-faceboo...
- relaxing 1y agoToo bad there no adjustment for price. Many of those “vacation homes” in the north are a few acres of wilderness and improvements worth a few thousand max. Zoning, as the author points to, is not the issue around those parts.
- BrenBarn 1y agoIt's not clear to me from this article or from the census page whether this definition of vacation homes includes residential units rented out via AirBnB or the like. But the numbers seem to suggest it doesn't, since some data ( https://insideairbnb.com/los-angeles/ https://insideairbnb.com/los-angeles/ ) says that, for instance, Los Angeles has 45k AirBnB listings while the article claims only 14k vacation homes in LA.
- tonymet 1y agoAll of the data about vacation homes grossly underestimates the vacancy rate because of the US primary residence deduction. There's a higher rate of vacancies even in non-vacation areas, and in vacation areas extremely high rates 75% or more for certain neighborhoods Most likely investors are setting up phony identities and marking the homes as occupied to claim deductions
- stockresearcher 1y agoAs with any stats-laden post, I wanted to understand what exactly a “vacation house” was. A footnote in the article references a “census of housing” and I found information on the US Census website. There are 6 main categories for vacant houses (vacation/seasonal is one of them), and at least some of them have subcategories. It is pretty likely that “vacation house” doesn’t include a lot of housing that most people would think of when they think about vacation houses. If something is listed on AirBnb or VRBO, for example, it is almost certainly not included in these stats.
- kccqzy 1y agoIf the home listed on Airbnb is also occasionally used by the owner, it would count as a vacation home. Otherwise it's just business property, more similar to a hotel than a vacation home. I got the sense that it's more about vacationing use by the owner, not short-term rental use by a non-owner.