Vacation home market heats up

Vacation home market heats up

Homebuyers looking for bargains are finding the time is right to make an offer on a second home.

Plentiful choices, attractive interest rates and low prices are spurring activity in the vacation-home sector, industry members say. Another factor: uncertain returns elsewhere.

“People are telling me they’re pulling their money out of stocks and their 401(k),” said Cathy Nichols, broker associate at Tropical Realty & Investments of Brevard.

She estimates that 90 percent of the closings she and business partner Sara Forst Griffin have completed in recent months have been vacation homes.