Hottest Second Home Markets Might Just Surprise You

Share News:

Second HomeHawaii? Nope. California? Nope. Florida? Nope. Where is the hottest second home market in the U.S.? Ocean City, New Jersey.

According to an analysis of second home purchases by SmartAsset, Ocean City rose to the top of the list thanks to a whopping 79.38 percent of its mortgages were for secondary residences. The coastal town has 2,865 mortgages for second homes and 744 for primary residences.

For comparison’s sake, the next closest city on the list, Salisbury, Maryland, had 54 percent of its mortgages going to second homes.

And areas you’d think might be at the top like Destin, Florida or Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, Hawaii had a mere 53 percent and 45 percent, respectively.

“To complete our rankings, we compared two metrics: the total number of home purchases and the number of home purchases made for non-primary residences,” SmartAsset said.

And as you can see, there are homes for all price ranges in the Ocean City, all within (at the very least) a quick walk to the beach.

How did Texas fare? Lubbock came in at 17, College Station-Bryan at 24, Brownsville-Harlingen (likely because of proximity to Padre Island) at 28, Corpus Christi at 29, San Angelo at 30, Killeen-Temple at 31, Wichita Falls at 35, and Sherman-Denison (likely because of Lake Texoma) at 41.

To see the whole report, click here.

Bethany Erickson

Bethany Erickson

1 Comment

  1. Candy Evans on April 7, 2019 at 2:29 am

    Lake Havasu was popular when my parents were looking at retiring, too!