05-19-2015 EDC Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

second homeowners' motivations for property purchase, future plans for their properties, and local spending patterns. They also prompted investigation into telecommuting and the business development resources that second homeowners bring to their second home communities. In autumn 2013, Extension mailed a four-page survey instrument to a randomly selected sample of 1,200 seasonal-recreational property owners in proportion to the number of seasonal properties per county. For example, Cass County second homeowners are 20% of the survey sample, since Cass County accounts for 20%of all second homes in the study area. We acquired mailing addresses from property tax records for each county, targeting the mailing to seasonal properties with a building value greater than$20,000(when available from property tax records), and only included properties with a permanent mailing address outside the county in which the property is located. We provided a $5 gift card as an incentive to each participant and used the Dillman survey method—an approach that reaches out to respondents before and after the actual survey—to contact and follow up with households by mail. Accordingly, all households received a pre-survey postcard, the survey itself, and a reminder postcard. We received 573 responses for a 48 percent response rate. SURVEY FINDINGS Demographic Profile of Second Homeowners Survey respondents are primarily in their 50s and 60s and well-educated, and three-quarters of them earn an income higher than Minnesota's median household income of$59,126 (American Community Survey, 2008-2012,U.S. Census Bureau), even though nearly 40 percent are currently retired. The large number of retirees may affect the age profile shown in the chart below. The overwhelming majority of survey participants are 50 years of age and older. The median age for the state of Minnesota was 37.4 years, according to the 2010 Census, compared with a median age of 60.5 years for the survey respondents. Just over 60 percent of respondents are male; 39 percent are female. In Minnesota, 32 percent of the residents 25 years of age and older have attained a bachelor's degree or higher,while nationally the percentage is 29 percent. In contrast, more than 60 percent of second homeowners replying to the survey reported obtaining a bachelor's degree or higher. Second Homeowners of Central and West Central MN 6