One can take a two-step approach: buy the land first then housing later. Bargain hunters with limited cash should focus on unimproved land. Make-shift housing can be arranged until money to build becomes available. Used campers are a relatively cheap first housing choice on recreation tracts. Modular housing provides good value, fast construction and many custom options.

Families can adapt to a smaller second-home footprint using temporary housing when needed. An extra $100,000 might buy you more bedrooms that you use twice a year, for three days each time. A budget-conscious buyer would be far ahead to pack guest kids in a four-bunk camper for $3,500 and make reservations for their parents at the closest B&B. Smaller second homes will also be cheaper to maintain and more energy efficient.

A new fact is that sellers would not be marketing a second home right now unless they had to sell right now. The valuations of 18 months ago asking prices are too high by ten to 50%.

Look for farms whose owners have been wrung out of agriculture as they’ve practiced it. Family dairy farms from New York through the upper Midwest are being sold, because of sector economics and the fact that it’s a very hard way to make a living. These farms are usually pretty and well-tended.

Prices for standing timber called stumpage have fallen in some places and not in others. In the Southeast, for example, prices for hardwood sawlogs used for furniture and flooring have remained steady, because second home and recreational owners of timberland are reluctant to cut their trees, thus restricting supply and maintaining stumpage prices. In West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York, however, stumpage prices for hardwood sawlogs have fallen, in some species by as much as 50% over the last couple of years.