Top 5 US Destinations for Vacation Homes
10/25/2019By Realopoly staff
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has published earlier this month a comprehensive report on the vacation home purchases in the US. NAR researched all 3,141 US counties, and identified the counties with the highest percentage of vacant housing as vacation home counties ( where seasonal, recreational, or occasional use of homes reached 20 or more percent of all housing stock in the particular county). The top five states for vacation homes are:
 
1. Massachusetts: Nantucket & Dukes, 56% are vacation homes; and Barnstable, 41%.
 Nantucket MA
 
2. New Jersey: Cape May, 51% are vacation homes. 
Cape May NJ 
 
3. Colorado: Grand, Summit Eagle, Jackson and Pitkin counties, 51% are vacation homes
Colorado
 
4. Wisconsin: Vilas, Lincoln, Langlade, Forest, Oneida, 43% are vacation homes. 
Sailboat on a lake in Wisconsin 
 
5. Michigan: Roscommon, Ogemaw, Gladwin, Iosco, Arenac, 42% are vacation homes. 
House in Michigan
 
 
Coincidentally, some of these places also rank high on the list of Top 25 Most Expensive Vacation Home Counties:
 
1. Nantucket, MA (2018 average home price: $1,639,831)
2. Dukes, MA ($784,375)
3. Pitkin, CO ($710,443)
8. Grand, CO ($385,047)
9. Barnstable, MA ($379,817)
15. Cape May, NJ ($317,427)
 
All data in this article courtesy of NAR's 2019 US Vacation Homes County Report October 2019. To read a complete report from NAR, please click here.