By: Mike Kennedy May 27th, 2008 Category: Deep Creek Lake Market Update, Deep Creek Lake Real Estate

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by a writer at the Washington Times for an article she was researching about vacation homes markets and my take about what is currently happening in the Deep Creek Lake real estate market. Last Friday, that article appeared on the Washington Times website - you can read the article by clicking here.

Other Resort Markets

After reading the article it’s interesting to note what a few real estate professionals are saying about other resort markets. A realtor who in works in the Rehoboth and Dewey Beach Delaware market stated the psychology of that market has changed slightly - but that long term prices should continue to rise. And a National Association of Realtors (NAR) spokesperson stated that their research has indicated that speculative buying behavior in resort markets have dropped back down to more historical norms.

Deep Creek Lake Real Estate Market

The current state of the Deep Creek Lake Maryland market is somewhat similar to what is going on in other vacation homes markets - which is that speculative buyers have seemed to decline but prices have continued to rise. Don’t get me wrong, there are still speculative buyers in our market right now - but the number of buyers looking to make a quick profit or flip a piece of property have steadily decreased over the past year or so. We have also seen a decrease in the number of buyers who were stretching themselves financially or had to rent heavily to buy in our market as well. Losing those two types of buyers has certainly contributed to the decease in the total amount of sales at Deep Creek Lake.

But We Still Have Plenty of Buyers…

What the Deep Creek Lake market didn’t lose coming off of our boom years were those buyers looking to buy a vacation home for their family and who also have the financial means to make such a purchase. That segment of buyers, which has traditionally made up a majority of our market, are still very much around and are still very much buying second homes at Deep Creek Lake and the Wisp Ski Resort. The continued demand by this segment has driven up prices and values in our market even though other areas have seen price declines.

Strong Fundamentals

While we’ll probably not see the high appreciation rates witnessed during our boom years just a few short years ago when speculators and flippers were everywhere - the good news is that the fundamentals are solid for future appreciation in this market. Demographic models show that the number of vacation homes purchased in the near future is expected to increase - this coupled with a low inventory of quality lakefront, lake access, and lake area homes should result in steady price appreciation at Deep Creek Lake. The entire shoreline around Deep Creek Lake is almost fully developed now - it will be almost impossible to ever have a large inventory of lakefront or lake access homes in this market in the future. If you plan on buying real estate at Deep Creek Lake in the next year or two it may be a great benefit to buy now - while prices aren’t rising quite as dramatically and while the speculators and flippers are still sitting on the sidelines - in the long run you’ll probably come out way far ahead.