Over 16 million American homes were reported “vacant” at the time of the 2020 census, including unoccupied secondary and rental homes, abandoned or foreclosed homes, investment properties, and empty units not listed for sale. The national vacancy rate has changed very little over the past two decades, rising only from 9% in 2010 to 9.7% in 2020, but even small changes can offer insight into larger housing issues, especially when tracking regional markets, says The New York Times.
Northeastern states like Vermont and Maine have the highest national vacancy rates at 23% each, suggesting potentially unfavorable homebuying conditions or greater regional advantages for second homes. On the contrary, Oregon has the smallest vacancy rate at just 8%, revealing strong buying activity sustained by high demand.
“You can go to a place with a super-high vacancy rate and home prices are really cheap, and that might suggest that people just don’t want to live there, or that there’s some type of economic problem that’s keeping people from buying,” said Jacob Channel, the author of the LendingTree post. “If you have an area that has a really high vacancy rate where home prices are really high, it could suggest that a lot of people use the area for secondary homes.”
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