18.9 million homes in America are vacant.

That's a lot, and the figure is growing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...ership-falls-to-lowest-level-in-a-decade.html

 

are those numbers significant?
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thr...9/02/19_million_vacant_homes_or_are_they.html

 

I don't quite understand. The article mentions that the vacancy rate is 2.5%. So does it mean that there are 18.9 million * 40 = 750 million homes in US??

750 million!?

 

"empty and for sale," the rest is the shadow inventory that is bantered about.





The share of homes empty and for sale, known as the vacancy rate, was 2.5 percent,

 

Trust me, its way more than 2.5%

 

Fox Business just said the number of homes vacant is now 19 million.

That's a lot of price pressure at some future date.

 

One of those houses is across the street from me. It was foreclosed two years ago and has been empty ever since. Naturally that's doing wonders for the resale value of *my* house.

 

There are a lot of empty foreclosed houses being held by banks which refuse to sell as they hope for better prices. Same goes for empty commercial real estate.

Land, on the other hand, is being liquidated at a fast pace since it is a negative cash flow asset.

 

I still think an explanation of 2.5% vacancy rate vs. 18.whatever million vacant homes is in order. Those two numbers can't both be right. There are maybe 170 million households in america.