Washington County, Utah, recorded the largest nationwide year-over-year increase in share of luxury second-home mortgage rate locks at 10.3 percent, according to new reporting from Pacaso.
Home to Zion National Park and scores of protected park land, this southernmost county of Utah has long been a popular vacation destination.
Luxury second homes are defined as homes sold for $1 million or more that are designated for seasonal and/or recreational use.
To determine the top U.S. markets, Pacaso analyzed second-home mortgage rate lock data, an indicator of second home buying activity. The report revealed the top 10 counties that saw the biggest annual increases in the share of second-home mortgage rate locks for homes priced above $1 million. Sought-after destinations in Utah, Florida and California saw the biggest gains in the country when it came to the number of people purchasing luxury second homes as compared with last year.
Counties without at least 50 second-home transactions as well as those with second-home mortgage-rate-lock share below 10 percent were excluded from the analysis.
“Despite a national cooling in residential real estate, we’re finding that the luxury real estate market is still in a league of its own,” said Pacaso CEO and Co-Founder Austin Allison in a release. “We’ve continued to see luxury sales volume growth in many top destination communities across the U.S. It’s just not the whiplash-inducing lightning-speed growth we saw throughout much of 2020 and 2021. High-net-worth buyers are not as reliant on financing, so they might be less deterred by rising rates, and we hear a lot from our buyers that they don’t want to wait for perfect market conditions, they are ready to enjoy the benefits of a second home now."
Osceola County, Fla. (6.1 percent), and Nevada County, Calif. (4.5 percent), also saw the biggest year-over-year share increases among the top markets that made the list. Osceola County is situated just south of Orlando and is near Florida’s east coast beaches.
Nevada County, which is known for popular destinations like Truckee, is situated in the Sierra Nevada mountains and is a short drive from the ski resorts of Lake Tahoe.
”What’s interesting here is that many of the counties that saw the largest year-over-year shift toward second home buying activity this year are already regarded as luxury top second home destinations,” Allison said. “Places like Napa, Kauai, and New York City all made the list this year. In previous years, lesser known ‘destination-adjacent’ locations saw the biggest shifts, but this year there’s a mix of established markets and up-and-coming destinations."