Vacation rentals cheaper and more abundant

(Money Magazine) -- Unless you're looking to buy a new home right now, you may be having a hard time imagining the upside to the bursting of the real estate bubble. Well, here's one: There are a lot more places to rent at the beach.
Usually the best shore rentals are snapped up while the snow is still on the ground. But this year inventory in vacation markets is up. Speculators - once lured by mega-appreciation - are having trouble selling, says David Stiff, chief economist at Fiserv Lending Solutions. "And if they can't sell their homes, the next best option is to rent them out."

Where to look
So how do you find places on your own? First try VRBO.com, which has some 70,000 vacation-rental listings, all posted by owners. That will give you a sense of what kinds of places are available and the price range.

I recently returned from a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and saw more beach rental properties than I could count. Along with the over abundance of ‘for sale’ signs it was not hard to appraise the situation - too much inventory.
Locals tell me that tourists come and fill these places each and every Summer, but somehow I doubt this will be the case this year.

Speculators threw up million dollar homes as fast as they could pull the permits.
Given that quite a number of these were purpose built for vacation rentals many were split into multiple units inside to pull the greatest rental profit.
This presents a problem as not many families do not want to live in a million dollar duplex or triplex. These will most likely remain a permanent part of the rental landscape. Just one more piece of fallout from the great turn of the century housing speculation.
Vern