Vacation House Sales Plummet

This was sent in from a reader on the other side of the GG bridge, in some place called San Francisco: Second home sales have taken a direct hit in the current real estate market slowdown, according the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) annual survey of investment and vacation home buyers.

The realtors group, always eager to put a sunny spin on the real estate market, was frank in its assessment of sales of second homes, which include both vacation homes and investment properties. “Second homes are discretionary purchases and there is a natural tendency to pull back from big-ticket items in periods of uncertainty,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

In 2007, some 740,000 vacation homes were sold, down 31 percent from the 1.07 million sold in 2006...

Hmm, Marin has a few vacation homes. But of course, as we all know, what happens in the rest of the country, or even the state, doesn't apply to us.