{"id":79782,"date":"2025-05-08T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T12:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/?p=79782"},"modified":"2026-04-22T13:24:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:24:40","slug":"second-home-mortgages-drop-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/second-home-mortgages-drop-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Demand For Vacation Homes Drops to Lowest Level Since at Least 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Americans are purchasing one-third as many vacation homes as they were during the pandemic buying boom. High prices and mortgage rates, along with the return of in-office work, have made the prospect of owning a second home less appealing than it once was.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

U.S. homebuyers took out 86,604 mortgages for second homes in 2024, the lowest level in records dating back to 2018 and down 5% from a year earlier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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This is according to a Redfin analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data covering purchases of second homes, primary homes and investment properties from 2018 to 2024. The term \u201cvacation home\u201d is used interchangeably with \u201csecond home\u201d in this report. There are more details on methodology at the end.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While mortgages for second homes dipped to a six-year low in 2024, the rate of decline slowed substantially from the two years prior. In 2022, second-home mortgages fell 42% year over year, and in 2023, they fell 40%. The big declines in 2022 and 2023 were due largely to the <\/span>vacation-home boom<\/span><\/a> in 2020 and 2021, which was driven by affluent Americans taking advantage of low mortgage rates and remote work to decamp to vacation destinations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Second-home mortgages made up just 2.6% of all mortgages in 2024\u2014the lowest share on record. That\u2019s down from 2.8% the year before and a peak of 5% in 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Demand for all home types was slow in 2024 because it was the <\/span>second-least affordable<\/span><\/a> year for homebuying on record, due to high home prices and mortgage rates. But demand for second homes fell more than demand for primary homes; mortgages for primary homes fell 1.4% year over year, less than half the decline in mortgages for second homes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are several reasons mortgages for second homes are falling faster:<\/b><\/p>\n