Ray and Lynette Petty looked to the future, crunched the numbers and agreed on a plan to assist their daughter and help secure their own financial future by buying a second home.

Then a third.

“We’re grabbing good properties when they’re available,” said Ray Petty, now the co-owner of two homes in Lawrence and a lakefront home in suburban Atlanta. “It’s a pretty safe investment, particularly when you’re able to buy some houses with potential.”

The Pettys are among an increasing number of Americans buying into a growing trend: Purchasing homes to be used as investments or vacation destinations, not as primary residences.

The National Association of Realtors reported this month that more than a third of all homes purchased last year were acquired as investment properties or vacation homes.

Such “second-home” sales nationwide climbed to 2.82 million in 2004, up 16.3 percent from a year earlier. Investment homes were up 14.4 percent to 1.8 million units, while vacation homes accounted for 1.02 million sales, up nearly 20 percent.

And it’s not just all high-income executives, attorneys and others doing all the buying. The association found that the median buyer of an investment property last year was 47 years old, earning $85,700. For vacation homes the breakdown was 55 years old and earned $71,000.

Profitable project

The Pettys — Ray is a consultant on disability issues, while Lynette teaches law at Washburn University — broke into the market for family and financial reasons. Their daughter, Risa Petty, needed a place to live while working in an outward bound program outside Atlanta, and the small fixer-upper at Lake Lanier fit the bill.

The Pettys added a deck and some stairs to make the home more attractive as it overlooks the clubhouse, pool and boat docks of the gated community north of Atlanta, where home prices range up to $250,000.

The Pettys paid about $75,000, and their daughter’s previous experience as a project supervisor for Habitat for Humanity helped pay off in making upgrades.

“That will make it easier to sell and make a profit,” Ray Petty said. “We might even want to sell it to the people that own the club.”

Risa Petty is relocating to Lawrence this weekend, where she intends to work as a massage therapist. The home her parents bought on Learnard Avenue — about 1,000 square feet, situated on a nearly one-acre lot — will give her a place to live until she decides whether to buy it from the folks later on.

Either way, the Pettys win.

“It’s an incremental investment,” Ray Petty said.

Such purchases are particularly popular in Lawrence, said Glen Sohl, a Realtor for Realty Executives Hedges Real Estate. Parents often buy homes to be occupied while their children attend college at Kansas University, which they either retain to be used later as rental properties or sold to recognize the profit from rising property values.

‘No-brainer’

Others simply are looking for a better place to park their money. This past week Sohl sold a home to a man who had pulled all his money out of the stock market, preferring to sink it into real estate.

Among the payoffs, Sohl said: A buyer can put $10,000 down for a $100,000 property, then realize the rising value of the entire property value while deducting interest from income taxes.

Lawrence residents need only look at their recent change-of-value notices mailed by the Douglas County Appraiser’s Office to see that investments in Lawrence real estate pay off. Residential valuation increases this year are expected to average 6 percent to 8 percent.

Do the math, he said, and the decision’s a “no-brainer.”

“The stock market is a long-term, buy-’em-and-hold-’em investment,” Sohl said. “If you’re doing it any other way — as lots of other people, day traders, do — it’s real volatile. And if you’re going to be in something for the long term, I don’t see an investment that’s better than real estate, unless you get into the entry-level Microsoft, and get in at the beginning.”