30% buying vacation homes plan to retire there.

In its annual survey of investment- and vacation-home sales, the National Association of Realtors found that he number of homes purchased as second or vacation homes jumped 7% last year to 502,000—accounting for 11% of all transactions, up from 10% of all sales in 2010. 30% of vacation-home buyers said they plan to use the property as a primary residence in the future, indicating that buyers who can afford to take advantage of low prices and low interest rates to buy their future retirement homes are doing so.