If there’s a bright side to the national housing crisis, it’s in the luxury vacation rental industry. Indeed, many of the hardest hit real estate markets are showing the biggest uptick in vacation property listings intended as second homes, but which are now for rent, often as a means of economic survival. Despite the challenging economy, nearly two-thirds of vacation rental homeowners reported summer bookings were the same or higher than last year, according to a second-quarter report by HomeAway, a national vacation rental company headquartered in Austin, Texas. “There are a lot of people who extended themselves to buy vacation properties [who] never intended to rent them out, and now they find themselves in a position where renting makes financial sense,” said Brian Sharples, CEO of HomeAway. more
