April 4, 2008
Record Percentage of New Vacation Home Buyers Intend to Rent Property to Travelers
HomeAway, the largest international network of vacation rental websites, last week announced that participation among new second home buyers in the vacation rental industry is at an all-time high, increasing the number and diversity of available vacation homes to travelers.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) last week reported a record percentage of new second home buyers – 25 percent – have purchased vacation homes with the intent to rent them out to vacationers, nearly doubling the number from just two years ago (14 percent in 2005).
Of those owners who intend to rent, 70 percent will rely on the Internet to advertise their vacation homes to travelers, according to the responses of proprietary questions HomeAway commissioned in NAR’s annual Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey released last week.
“Travelers are the ones who really benefit from the inventory created when a record-breaking one of four homeowners decides to rent their vacation homes,” says Brian Sharples, founder and CEO of HomeAway. “A larger pool of vacation rental homes means more choices in more destinations for the growing number of travelers who are discovering the advantages of vacation rental homes over hotels.”
Earlier this month, travel expert Arthur Frommer called the growing trend of renting vacation homes and apartments “a giant movement,” citing affordability when compared to hotels as the reason. In fact, industry analysts predict U.S. hotel prices will rise 5 to 8 percent this year.
Another question sponsored by HomeAway as part of the NAR study reveals that more than half of the new vacation owners who did not plan to rent out their homes would consider doing so in the future. This is consistent with HomeAway research indicating homeowners begin to rent two to three years into owning because they don’t use their home as often as they had planned.
Story from www.vacation-finance.com
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