Housing and rental vacancies have hit unprecedented levels. Included in these record vacancy numbers are a plague of abandoned properties fated for demolition, and millions more homes being withheld from market. Of the more than 19 million empty homes recorded by the US Census, just under 2 million are up for sale, many of them in uninhabitable condition.
Even though the economy remains weak and the housing market, in particular, is still years from recovery, some news suggests that stronger growth can be expected as the year progresses.
A record 19.2 million U.S. homes are vacant, representing the highest number of residential properties that are vacant of all-time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The figure represents 14.5% of all the homes in America.
The dismal figure was issued as part of the Census Bureau homeownership quarterly survey for the first quarter of 2010. A total of 19,230,000 homes are vacant, according to the report. The same study shows that 10.6% of all rental properties in the nation are vacant, also an all-time record.
