Vacation Rental Market
I'm curious what people's thoughts are. We were under contract in a town that is largely vacation homes/rentals and retirement. It's about an hour from a national park and 3 hours away from a major economic hub. Their market is never hot, usually average time on the market is 100-120 days. In 20 years, their housing prices have swung wildly with the economy, tanking during recessions, but actually never going that high. For some reason (be it the pandemic, low inventory (<50% of usual), their market has been hot - places going under contract the same day, getting more than one offer. We were under contract on a place (marked 60k higher than the price from 3 years ago with very little upkeep), but we canceled when we realized the deck would need work and the seller refused to even give a dollar of credit. I feel like the market isn't behaving how it usually does. Our agent kept trying to convince me that it would be hot forever, but a broker from his same company admitted to us opening, "this place really tanks with the economy because what are people going to sell - their primary home or their vacation home?".
I guess I want to make myself feel better about walking away. I plan on watching and waiting the next several months. My goal was to get a vacation home that I could use, also use as a rental, but also NOT lose money on (so didn't want to "buy high, sell low").