Investment home sales jumped last year

A high-end subset of the housing market showed resilience last year, with sales of vacation and investment homes jumping to the highest level since 2005. The National Association of Realtors says investment home sales surged 64.5 percent to 1.23 million sales last year. Vacation home sales rose 7 percent to 502,000. Those gains came even as owner-occupied sales fell 15.5 percent to 2.78 million. Arizona has been a hotbed for investment and vacation home sales in recent years as housing prices have dropped roughly 50 percent since 2007. The NAR doesn't break down sales by state, but 30 percent of all vacation homes sold last year were in the West -- which includes Arizona. Seventeen percent of all investment properties were sold in the West last year. Vacation home sales accounted for 11 percent of all housing sales last year, while investment sales represented 27 percent of all sales. The Washington-based NAR says it is a sign investors with cash were taking advantage of market conditions last year. "During the past year investors have been swooping into the market to take advantage of bargain home prices," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. "Rising rental income easily beat cash sitting in banks as an added inducement."

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