The #1 most-viewed listing for this week on 2ndhome.net is in Tollgate Canyon, Park City, Utah. This home has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and is on 5.51 acres. It’s listed at $349,900 by Pine Meadows Properties.

#2 is a post and beam contemporary in Keene Valley, New York. It’s listed at $725,000 by Adirondack Realty.

#3 is a tie. One property is located in Green Lake, Wisconsin and is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home on 2 acres. It’s listed at $392,000 by Lake Real Estate, LLC.

The other listing at #3 is located in Hills Beach, Maine and is a 3+ bedroom, 2 bathroom beach house. It’s listed at $950,000 by Hollow Woods Management.

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Vacation homebuyers and retirees have been flocking lately to the home of Penn State. According to Centredaily.com, a website dedicated to covering Central Pennsylvania, upwards of 25% of homes in the area are being used by seasonal homeowners and/or retirees.

The growth of the second home trend is strong in many college towns around the U.S. In many cases, the communities surrounding colleges and universities provide access to high-end amenities and social activities unavailable in comparable non-college towns.

Reasonably priced properties with many amenities have drawn many from the D.C. and NYC area to look at State College as a place for a weekend getaway or for possible retirement. Many of these home buyers have connections to Penn State, including enthusiastic support for Penn State’s football program.

More information, including specific price examples that indicate why State College has attracted buyers from more highly-priced markets, can be found on their website.

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So let’s say that you want a vacation home, but you don’t have millions to spend (or half a million for that matter). What can you get for only $250,000? Is there anything out there worth getting? Well, the listings below prove that yes, there are plenty of properties out there that are completely affordable no matter what part of the country you’re in, and some are even waterfront or have substantial acreage.

Central City, Pennsylvania: $259,500

4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1672 square feet, 38 acres

Egg Harbor, Wisconsin: $259,000

4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1920 square feet, .6 acres

Ocean View, Hawaii: $258,000

2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, unknown square footage, 1 acre

Kissimmee, Florida: $253,900

4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, unknown square footage, unknown acreage

North Woodstock, New Hampshire: $249,900

3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1412 square feet, condo

Peoria, Arizona: $249,900

3 bedrooms, unknown bathrooms, 1520 square feet, .19 acres

Tolland, Massachusetts: $249,900

2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, unknown square footage, .46 acres, water access

Surfside Beach, Texas: $249,000

4 bedrooms, unknown bathrooms, unknown square footage, .14 acres

Antioch, Illinois: $244,900

3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, unknown square footage, unknown acreage, waterfront

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If you bought a vacation home using the equity in your primary residence to finance it, the current housing slump could have placed you ‘upside down’ in your mortgage debt versus the current value of your home. If you plan on keeping your primary home for a while, this debt to equity slide may pose only a temporary problem. If, on the other hand, you are planning on selling your home in the near future, you may need to look at creative ways of doing so without having to bring a lot of cash to the table at closing. One of the strategies increasingly being suggested by Realtors to clients facing this scenario is the so-called Short Sale. In certain circumstances, this procedure allows a homeowner to retire mortgage debt at less than the face value of the loan. The process is not without risk and may have negative consequences that outweigh the advantages of using this method of selling. It all depends on your situation.

If you’d like to learn more about what a Short Sale is and how they work, you’ll find a good overview of the pros and cons over at Realty Times.

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If you are second home shopping this fall, think about insurance issues as you do property tours. The recent upheaval in the mortgage markets has a corollary set of issues and complexities in the property and casualty insurance business.

In the wake of the bankrupting of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) by Katrina and other ’05 storms, many insurers have stopped writing new business in some storm-prone areas. Others have simply left the market entirely. These pressures have resulted in fewer choices for those seeking coverage for vacation homes and in some cases much higher prices for adequate coverage.

The Congress is still at work on a revamping of the NFIP, following a 23 billion dollar financial bailout of the program voted in 2006. Part of the proposed changes to the NFIP includes re-drawing the lines that identify flood zones. The maps currently in use are hopelessly outdated and in many cases wildly inaccurate. It’s likely that many more homes will be eligible for NFIP coverage when and if new legislation is passed. The legislation under consideration would increase availability of insurance, raise premiums and might reduce or remove subsidies for vacation homeowners that exist under current law.

The uncertainty about what companies are going to continue writing policies for second homes and at what cost has been made more murky due to the lack of definitive action by the Congress to settle the outstanding issues.

The long and the short of it is, you have to make obtaining insurance a primary deciding factor when shopping for your vacation getaway. If the legislative standoff continues, it’s likely that insurance costs will climb even higher and that policies offering adequate coverage might be unavailable at any price. In some areas

For a good overview of other issues surrounding property insurance, you can check out this article over at the New York Times.

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