11% - 18.4M to be exact - of U.S. homes are vacant

damn...! that's a LOT of empty houses...!

Of the nearly 131 million housing units in this country, 112.5 million are occupied. 74.8 million are owned, and that's only dropped by about 30 thousand in the past year. 38 million are rented, but that's up by over a million year over year. That means more new households are choosing to rent.

Now to vacancies. There were 18.4 million vacant homes in the U.S. in Q4 '10 (11 percent of all housing units vacant all year round), which is actually an improvement of 427,000 from a year ago, but not for the reasons you'd think.

The number of vacant homes for rent fell by 493 thousand, as rental demand rose. 471,000 homes are listed as "Held off Market" about half for temporary use, but the other half are likely foreclosures. And no, the shadow inventory isn't just 200,000, it's far higher than that.

So think about it. Eleven percent of the houses in America are empty. This as builders start to get more bullish, and renting apartments becomes ever more popular. Vacancies in the apartment sector have been falling steadily and dramatically, why? Because we're still recovering emotionally from the toll of the housing crash.

Younger Americans have seen what home ownership has done to their friends and families, and many want no part of it. Credit has become very nearly elitist. Home prices, whatever your particular data provider preference might be, are still falling.

i've owned three houses in my life and i can say with absolute certainty that i would never do it again... for one thing, i have no desire to be burdened by a place that i have to maintain, i have no desire to be anchored to one place, particularly one that would sit vacant for half the year at least, and i have zero desire to take on debt of any sort, particularly the long-term mortgage variety... what's more, i've seen that, in most places in the world outside the u.s., owning a home is simply not de rigueur... plus, on top of all that, now that i'm reaping the wisdom of age, i'm seeing just how much mortgage debt is used as a tool of economic enslavement...

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You have virtually no rights as a homeowner

alan grayson...

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When stocks rise on Wall Street, how does that benefit the average schmoe struggling with unemployment?

it doesn't...

Wall St rises on resources, banks, data

U.S. stocks extended gains on Monday, pushing major indexes up 1 percent as investors snapped up shares of natural resource companies and banks after fresh data pointed to signs of economic stabilization.

before we look at unemployment, let's look at what's happening with rental and homeowner vacancy rates...

In Kansas City, rental vacancy rates rose from 11.9% to 15% over the past year; homeowner vacancy rates nearly doubled, up from 2.1% to 3.8%. Comparatively, the average homeowner vacancy rate in the country's 75 largest metro areas improved slightly from 3% to 2.7%, while the rental vacancy rate edged up to 10.2% from 10% a year ago.

Kansas City isn't the only metro where rental and homeowner vacancy rates are rising in tandem. Second on our list is the San Francisco-Oakland metro, where high prices are pushing Bay Area residents out of the region. Third is Tucson, Ariz., where the aftermath of the housing boom has left a glut of inventory. The pair's predicament illustrates both sides of the vacancy coin.

[...]

Miami, which ranks No. 8, owns a whopping 12.7% rental vacancy rate, up from 11.4% a year ago; residential towers built in the final stages of the boom now stand as empty monuments to an over-hyped market downtown. Homeowner vacancy stands at 5.6%, up from 3.8% last year, thanks mostly to a spate of foreclosures. According to Trulia.com, 40% of the homes available in Miami's city limits are foreclosures.

now, how about that unemployment...

The U.S. unemployment rate may not peak until the second half of 2010, even as the broader economy shows signs of improvement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.

[...]

Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, said that while the economy will resume growth in the second half of the year, the job picture “will be serious for some time to come.”

and what's going to make things all better...?

Much of the economic recovery will depend on the housing market, [former Fed Chairman Alan] Greenspan said.

oh, well then...

note to you average schmoes struggling with unemployment... the tradesters and banksters may be kissing the recession goodbye but, for the time being, you can kiss your ass goodbye...

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