It's a great time to buy the vacation home you've been dreaming of, that retreat by the sea or in the woods you might retire to some day. Mortgage rates are low, prices are down and the bulge bracket of people aged 44 to 62 will presumably resume shopping for retirement retreats very soon. It's also a terrible time to buy. Shorelines are disappearing, and tax-hungry locals are putting the squeeze on second-home owners. Worse, prices in certain overbuilt Sunbelt areas, such as Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale and parts of Florida, will fall another 20% or more and wont begin to recover until 2011, Moody's Economy.com predicts.
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