Vacation and investment home sales fell to 30% of all transactions involving new homes last year, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.
In 2007, second homes accounted for 33% of all sales.
Home speculation peaked in 2005, when 40% of home sales were vacation properties, the trade group said. The market share of investment homes stayed flat at 21% last year, while the share of vacation home sales slipped 3 percentage points, to 9%.
"We expected vacation home sales to fall, given the impact of a declining economy on discretionary purchases," said Lawrence Yun, the group's chief economist.
