The above article indicates that vacation real estate markets are “toast,” according to the CEO of Redfin.
Vacation rentals certainly haven’t been rented out during the shut-down caused by COVID-19. Vacation rentals often require high short term rents in order to be positive cash flow. They often are not capable of positive cash flow when rented out long term. Owners wanting liquidity, such as to save businesses, are certainly more likely to liquidate a second home than a primary residence. For these reasons, some gurus predict that real estate values may go down in late 2020, 2021 or soon thereafter, at least for areas that have a lot of vacation rentals.
But businesses are now more accepting of remote workers. It is possible that those remote workers will move away from crowded cities to more rural areas or vacation areas. It will take some time to see how things shake out. There may be a long term downward trend in values in vacation areas. Or there may be a V shaped recovery.