The vacation-home buyer [Central Florida]
If Daytona’s complicated real estate market could be reduced to a round of “Jeopardy!,” one answer recited by Alex Trebek might be this: the beach, Disney, deep discounts and a droopy dollar.
And the question? What factors are Realtors counting on to start a recovery in the area’s vacation-home market?
Like other types of property in the Daytona Beach area, beachside homes and condominiums experienced slower sales last year as the economy sputtered and adjustable-rate mortgages grew more expensive and harder to get. But the local decline appears to have been shallower than the national pattern, and some Realtors predict an uptick in sales this summer, the peak season for the vacation-home market.
“The market has picked up,” said Diane Caron, an agent at Ponce Inlet Realty who has scored more than a dozen sales so far this year. “Owners are accepting much lower prices than a year ago, and investors are buying at those prices,” she said.