Annual Second Home Sentiment Report

The second home real estate market is booming. Driven by lifestyle changes due to the pandemic, Americans from all walks of life are looking for an escape from the everyday work-from-home, school-from-home isolation. For those who are able to, this means escaping to a second home or pursuing the dream of owning one.To better understand what’s motivating second home buyers, we have created the Second Home Sentiment Report, an annual survey-driven report to identify trends around second home ownership. Indeed, our survey shows Americans who do not already own a second home are much more likely to want one today compared to before Covid-19. More than half (55.7%) say they want to own a second home, compared with 46.4% before Covid-19. Other insights from the report include:

In a dramatic gender role flip, men are taking charge of the second home purchase; nearly 70% of the people who contact Pacaso to ask about buying a second home are men. By contrast, women historically drive 91% of the decisions around buying a primary home.
Of the people who desire to own a second home but don’t already, nearly half (49.7%) said inability to afford the home is holding them back from purchasing one. More than a third (36.6%) said they can’t justify spending the money on a second home, and 16.9% said they won’t use the home enough.
Second-home dreamers overwhelmingly prefer to drive to their second home (70.9%) vs. fly (26.7%), and most people want a second home near water rather than the mountains.
Nearly a third of second home owners say they are using their getaways more often than before Covid-19.
Modern is the most desired home design style, followed closely by rustic.

The report is a collaboration between Pacaso and The Escape Home, a newsletter and community for second home owners and those who want to be. It uses data from two surveys, one conducted online with 2,000 Americans in November 2020, and the other with active Pacaso second home seekers in late 2020. A previous survey was fielded online in February 2020.Check out the full Second Home Sentiment Report.

Second home market trends: Our annual Second Home Sentiment Report

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