Select a Vacation Environment
Decide what type of vacation setting you desire and identify a number of locations that meet your environment criteria. Step 3 will then help you to rank these locations by popularity and future supply and
demand.
Select the kind of location you wish and then establish what kind of home you're looking for. We all have different criteria for choosing the best place to vacation and live. For example, say you want a beach vacation environment. Your criteria might be something like this:
o A small beach town filled with single-family beach homes, a main street with quaint stores and a few restaurants, and some scattered beach activities like parasailing, snorkeling, and jet skiing.
Or your criteria might be:
o A large beach-vacation market, like Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, filled with single-family beach houses and condos, with a great deal of shopping, amusement parks, beach activities, golf courses, and so on.
I would categorize vacation (geographic) locations in the following manner:
1. Beach
2. River
3. Lake
4. Mountains
5. Rural
6. City
7. Close to home
8. Other
From these vacation locations, you need to identify the type of vacation resort/activity you desire. You might characterize the vacation resorts/activities in the following manner:
1. Beach activities
2. Boating
3. Skiing
4. Fishing
5. Mountain climbing/rafting
6. Golf
7. Tennis
8. Other sports
9. City activities (plays, movies, etc.)
10. Other
Selecting a vacation location is a personal decision that only you can make. No one can help you with these decisions. When you finally select the kind of vacation spot you want (e.g., a vacation home on a lake or river with golf/tennis nearby), there are several resources you can utilize to find your dream vacation location. First, there are many real estate companies that specialize in resort/vacation properties. Visit their sites.
One of the top sites is EscapeHomes.com. You can input your search criteria into their property listings database and identify some areas (regions, metros, counties, etc.) across the nation that satisfy your environment needs. Or visit the largest residential property site for home listings, REALTOR.com, and input your criteria for a vacation location and property type as well.
This selection is posted courtesy of RandomHouse Books
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