Owning, letting and demanding second homes

An increasing number of households consume housing beyond the primary home as owners of a second home. Economic studies of second homeownership are still very scarce, and the present empirical study fills this gap to some extent. It is based on Danish survey data combined with administrative register data and presents estimations of the probability of owning a second home, the decision to let the second home and the number of let weeks per year. Also income elasticities for primary and second housing demand are estimated. We find a conventional monotonic increase in demand elasticities for primary housing demand for non-owners of second homes; however, owners of second homes have the highest income elasticity in the middle income group.