Sunday, March 15, 2009 8:30 AM - By Kevin Joy - THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH - The cloudy days and long winters all too familiar to central Ohio never bothered Bruce Rayner much.
But with two kids in high school and retirement in the distance, the 53-year-old from Westerville recently set his sights on sand and sun.
"We're looking at the next chapter," said Rayner, who this year began searching online for a seasonal house in South Carolina or Florida.
Even in troubling times, those with cash to spare -- and the desire to invest outside the turbulent stock market -- face a silver lining: prime conditions to find a vacation home.
With wide inventory and competitive pricing in their
favor, folks in search of frequent leisure (and perhaps retirement) could score a deal that puts relaxation within reach.
"Now that people are able to afford it or justify it, the market has become extremely hot" for vacation homes, said David Nourse, a real-estate broker who splits his time and clientele between Columbus and Naples, Fla.
"As soon as (Naples) houses come on the market, I'm on the phone" with interested parties, Nourse said.
Claiming that he hasn't been as busy in three years, Nourse said Naples-area homes that might have sold for $450,000 at the start of 2006 are being snapped up for as little as $300,000. He added that smaller inland properties can be found for even less, prices that didn't exist several years ago, when the housing bubble and building boom fueled sky-high sale prices.
Amid a battered economy and a rash of foreclosures, housing markets in sun-soaked states such as Arizona, Florida and Nevada -- prime second-home markets -- are hurting, according to RealtyTrac, a Web site that collects default data.
"It's a buyer's market," said Joe Mezera, a real-estate broker who works in Columbus and Hilton Head, S.C., where list prices on some parts of the island are down 20 percent. "Prices are certainly lower now. The inventory of properties is higher, without a doubt."
Nationwide, fewer shoppers purchased a vacation home in 2007 -- 740,000 homes vs. a record 1.1million in 2006, according to a national survey by the National Association of Realtors.
The median price of a vacation home also fell 2.5 percent between 2006 and 2007 -- from $200,000 to $195,000.
Although 2008 figures won't be released until April, they'll probably reflect the continued slide in the housing market. Home prices nationwide plunged in the fourth quarter of 2008, an 18.3 percent decline from the same period in 2007, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index.
"I would expect we're going to see a pretty significant drop-off in vacation-home sales," said Paul Bishop, managing director of real-estate research for the National Association of Realtors. "It's such a discretionary purchase."
Yet real-estate agents who represent popular Ohio vacation spots say their markets are in much healthier shape than Sunbelt destinations, with far fewer (if any) foreclosures and more stable prices.
"We never really had that bubble," said Port Clinton real-estate agent Donna Schoonmaker, attributing a slower rate of construction and more accurate pricing.
Still, there are bargains to be had.
"With the economy the way it is, a lot of people have decided to give up a second place," said Jerry Chapman, a real-estate agent for Coldwell Banker who represents towns surrounding Indian Lake in northwestern Ohio.
"A lot of them are willing to take less than what they paid."
Although prices of the area's waterfront properties remain steady, homes off the lake are listed, on average, for about 10 percent less than in previous years, Chapman said.
And while foreclosed properties are available, those tenants, Chapman said, are year-round residents who have been affected by job losses or other circumstances, not speculative investors burned by a housing bubble.
To read the rest of the article, http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/home_garden/stories/2009/03/15/homepos1.html?sid=101
For more information on Buying a Home in Hanahan & Mount Pleasant, SC and Surrounding Areas contact Matt Naumann, your local local buying expert on Foreclosures, REOs, and Bank Owned Properties.
