'Splitters' not content with just one place to call home

December 22, 2005: A new market segment of homeowners called "splitters," people who split time between two homes, are helping to fuel not only the home-building industry, but other industries as well, a survey from Florida-based WCI Communities found.

Splitters evolved from post-World War II migratory trends in the United States. How many places have they lived since birth? How many of their extended family still live in the same town?

These are among the 35 questions that were asked of 12,000 people in the survey, which required respondents to live east of the Mississippi River and be a homeowner. Of the 1,743 respondents, 408 qualified as splitters.

About 70 percent of splitters own a second home and 20 percent, identified as "super splitters," own three homes.

"Americans no longer expect to experience birth, life and death in the same city or town where they grew up, or even where their families currently live," WCI spokesman Kyle Reinson said.

He said the survey was commissioned to develop a better understanding of emerging American cultural and economic trends of second-home ownership.

A recent study from the National Association of Realtors projects a twofold increase in second homes by 2009, which would account for nearly 12 million homes by the end of the decade.

Rod Franklin of Advanced Real Estate Teams in Las Vegas recently sold a luxury condo unit at Turnberry Place to a second-home owner.

"The guy said, 'I don't think that anybody lives here but me.' There's never anybody in the lobby, nobody's on the balconies. A lot of people are absentee owners. They're here a few days, then they're gone," Franklin said.

Thirty-eight percent of splitters bought their second home within the past five years and 60 percent purchased within the past 10 years, the WCI survey showed.

They spend an average of $943 a year on repairs and maintenance at the second home, $794 on home remodeling and upgrades, $781 stocking the home with food and necessities and $746 on home decor and furnishings.

Among buyers in the 45-54 age group, which is where the average second-home buyer falls, roughly 57 percent used fixed-rate financing for the purchase, 18 percent paid cash, 10 percent inherited the second home, 11 percent used an adjustable-rate mortgage and 5 percent used interest-only.

Splitters include "snowbirds," people who live in mostly Northern states and Canada and flock to sunny states such as Nevada, Arizona and Florida during the winter. The wedge between a splitter and a snowbird is driven by the number of visits to a second home, Reinson said.

Air travel and transportation infrastructure make it easier for splitters to visit their second home, especially if the homes are near each other. On average, splitters visit their second homes 17.6 times a year, skewed by respondents who visit their second home constantly. The median number of visits is five a year.

Philippe Pageau-Goyette splits time between Las Vegas, where he's developing Club Renaissance high-rise condo tower downtown, and Phoenix, where he has two other projects under construction.

"My house is in Las Vegas. When I got married, my wife had a house in Phoenix. Instead of coming here (to Phoenix) and staying in a hotel, we just decided to keep this house and the values are going up so high, we decided to keep it," he said.

The survey found an emphasis on family that supports the lifestyle pattern in which some splitters mirror school and work schedules of important family members, Reinson said.

"Perhaps splitters are needed to help raise children or keep them under their care for some amount of time," he said.

Parenting and family seemed to weigh heavily with respondents as 28 percent said raising children, being successful parents and providing for their families were their top concerns. Twenty-seven percent said the dissolution or breakup of the family threatens American society.

Top reasons for visiting a second home include relaxation and getaway, family vacations and get-togethers, and recreational activities.