A Partly Cloudy Forecast For Second-Home Rentals

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A Partly Cloudy Forecast
For Second-Home Rentals

By Troy McMullen
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Summer may be months away, but in some parts of the U.S., it's high season for beach-rental jockeying.

Early birds have already begun booking some of the biggest, most expensive and best-situated summer rentals from California to New York. But the waterfront land-rush isn't reaching all shores: Much like the overall U.S. housing market has sent mixed signals lately, the rental market is running hot and cold. In the Hamptons in New York, homeowners are reporting one of their best years ever, with two months' rent in some towns reaching $1 million, while houses are going fast in Lake Tahoe and Wisconsin's Lake Geneva. The rental market is lagging in Cape Cod, Mass., as a wave of new second-home owners try to recoup their investment by putting their properties up for rent: Kinlin Grover GMAC, which manages properties on the Cape, says this year it is representing more than 1,000 homes -- up from 850 last summer.
-- March 01, 2006

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