This short paper profiles households who have a second home in Spain by their socio-demographic, residential and geographical characteristics as extracted from the 2001 census data, and studies the determinants of this residential practice. The authors test the “compensation hypothesis” which postulates an association between the quality of the residential environment of the primary residence and the propensity to have a second home. For households possessing a second home, they establish a positive correlation with car ownership, age of household reference person, size of municipality and characteristics of the primary residence.