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With summer near, vacation home owners are renting — for now

But real estate agents say that could all change in the fall, when owners of second and third homes seek to shake off excess properties. 'Since this happened before Memorial Day, people are saying I can get $400 grand for four months? I'll just list it in September.'

Even as the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic hits people of all income levels, homeowners are holding on to vacation houses and renting them for top dollar for the summer.

Sally Forster Jones, Executive Director, Luxury Estates at Compass in Los Angeles, said there’s been an explosion in affluent people looking to rent a luxury property this summer. Homes that have a resort feel — a pool, spa and fitness amenities, lots of outdoors space and access to the beach — are particularly popular in places like Malibu and Laguna Beach.

“The prices have increased dramatically because there’s such a demand,” Jones told Inman, adding that summer homes in the Los Angeles area can rent for hundreds of thousands of dollars for several months. “You have local residents saying ‘look, I’m not going on vacation, but I just want to get out of my house.'

In the past, financial uncertainty pushed people with vacation homes to consolidate and get rid of any additional mortgage payments or expenses that come with owning a second home. But now, anyone who owns a vacation house in a popular area has a hot commodity. Jones has also observed increased interest in lease-purchase, in which a client leases a home for a few months to test it out and then commits to buying it full time.

“Many property owners are going to lease it out in the interim and hang in there for a while,” Forster said. “Becoming a landlord rather than a seller right now is working in a lot of owners’ interest.”

Source Inman

Written by Veronika Bondarenko

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