U.S. buyers took out 4.1% more mortgages for vacation homes in 2025 than in 2024, the first annual increase in four years, according to a Redfin report released this week, with more than 85% of those loans going to high-income buyers.
Redfin found that 85.2% of vacation-home mortgages issued in 2025 went to high earners, whose median household income was $294,000, more than three times the U.S. median household income of $88,000. Fewer than 3% of second-home mortgages went to low-income buyers, whose median income was $69,000.
The uptick marks a turn after years of decline. Second-home mortgages made up 5.1% of all U.S. mortgage originations at the pandemic-era peak in 2021, when remote work freed many buyers to purchase away from their primary residence. That share fell steadily through 2024 before edging up to 2.7% in 2025. By comparison, mortgages for primary residences rose just 1% in 2025, after a 2% increase in 2024, underscoring how much more sensitive vacation-home demand is to the same affordability pressures affecting the broader market.
“Vacation homes are making a modest comeback, but it’s a very different market than it was during the pandemic,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economics research. Today’s second-home buyers, Zhao said, generally have the financial flexibility to make a large discretionary purchase even as many prospective buyers of primary residences remain sidelined by high prices and mortgage rates.
Buyers between the ages of 45 and 64 accounted for nearly 59% of vacation-home mortgages in 2025, split between the 55-to-64 group (31.1%) and the 45-to-54 group (27.6%). Buyers 35 to 44 made up 18.6%, older buyers 65 to 74 made up 14.1%, and buyers under 35 accounted for just 5.4%, reflecting the accumulated savings and home equity typically required to carry a second mortgage.
West Palm Beach, Fla., led the nation in vacation-home mortgage concentration, with second-home loans accounting for nearly 6% of all mortgage originations in the metro, the highest share among the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. New Brunswick, N.J., which covers the Jersey Shore, ranked second at 4.6%, and Riverside, Calif., home to the Palm Springs area, ranked third at 3.8%. All three metros share a common profile: relatively easy driving or short-flight access from a major wealth center, paired with an established second-home market that predates the pandemic buying boom.
The pandemic-era surge in vacation-home buying was driven in large part by remote-work flexibility that let buyers split time between a primary residence and a second property without commuting constraints. As employers have pulled back on remote-work policies over the past several years, that flexibility has diminished for many would-be buyers, one factor Redfin has previously cited alongside high prices and mortgage rates in explaining the multi-year decline in second-home demand from the 2021 peak through 2024.
What it means
Verified facts: second-home mortgage volume rose in 2025 for the first time since the pandemic peak, the increase is concentrated almost entirely among high-income buyers, and coastal and desert resort metros continue to dominate the vacation-home mortgage market.
Redfin’s interpretation: Zhao’s comment frames the rebound as driven by buyers with unusual financial flexibility rather than a broad-based return of second-home demand, which is Redfin’s own read of who is transacting rather than an independently verified causal claim.
RealtyWire analysis: the divergence between primary-home and second-home mortgage growth suggests affordability pressure is filtering unevenly through the market, with discretionary buyers largely insulated from the affordability squeeze that continues to weigh on first-time and primary-residence buyers, a dynamic consistent with the broader wealth concentration described in RealtyWire’s coverage of Miami’s rise as a top ultra-luxury market.
What to watch
Whether the 2025 increase extends into 2026 will depend heavily on mortgage rates, which recently climbed to their highest level of the year. Higher rates raise the cost of carrying a second mortgage more acutely for discretionary purchases than for primary residences, so a further rate increase could cut short the rebound in resort markets such as West Palm Beach and the Jersey Shore before it gains momentum.
