Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave R
I have spent a lot of time in the lakes region and now live at Hampton Beach. I don't think million dollar+ condos bring in much tourism revenue anywhere since most are probably either occupied by owners (who are likely not eating out every day or hitting tourist traps, due to BTDT syndrome) or they are empty. I suspect that when you can afford a million dollar+ condo as a second home, there's not a lot of incentive to rent it out.
I can say with certainty that sub-$500k condo short-term rentals are absolutely booming here at Hampton Beach. We rent our one-bedroom beach condo out May to Oct on airbnb and it sells out easily. Many of our neighbors do the same. We are in process of buying a second one bedroom condo right now and plan to keep buying more when good deals land in our lap (we refuse to get into bidding wars).
I think it's safe to assume the tourism revenue from the people that are renting these small (600-850 square foot) beach condos is pretty huge because in addition to the beach, our customers tell us the big draw here is all the cool places to spend money at night. Tourists love all the live music and expensive food/drink venues that are clustered here.
The lakes region, IMO, is going in the opposite direction as the seacoast, tourism-wise. It's becoming more and more exclusive and other than Weirs Beach (which is tiny compared to Hampton Beach), there really aren't any high-density low-cost vacation destinations in the lakes region anymore.
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I think you make an excellent point. There used to be cabin colonies and motels and now there are hardly any. We are a second home area now. And although more people rent their private houses, it still does not even compare to what used to be available.