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A comment on Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Costs Surge, Report Finds. Parent comment

Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by shuckles on Thursday October 12, 2023 @08:44AM (#37856396)
The vacancy rate suggests most vacant units are in-between occupants, something you'd require for a healthy market. The vacancy rate should probably be double what it is -- it's probably at historic lows.

Edit: Yep, vacant units per capita are at historic lows. We have a construction problem not a vacancy problem: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=131FW#0.

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Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by dv_dt on Thursday October 12, 2023 @09:27AM (#37856844)
That definition of vacant does not seem include empty units with owners elsewhere.
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Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by Ajedi32 on Thursday October 12, 2023 @09:42AM (#37856982)
You're reading it wrong. Those would count as vacant.

> In addition, a vacant unit may be one which is entirely occupied by persons who have a usual residence elsewhere.

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Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by dv_dt on Thursday October 12, 2023 @09:56AM (#37857197)
The sentence says “may”. And the previous sentence says “ A housing unit is vacant if no one is living in it at the time of the interview, unless its occupants are only temporarily absent.”

I guess we would have to read further on how they determine temporary. But given the sampling method, I would guess people doing a door to door survey and noting it as temporary absent if it’s well kept?

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Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by shuckles on Thursday October 12, 2023 @05:57PM (#37863704)
The FED graph uses census vacancy data, which is what I’m assuming the original article does as well. So the metric is apples to apples.
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Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by dv_dt on Thursday October 12, 2023 @09:26AM (#37856834)
That definition of vacant does not seem include empty units with owners.
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Re:Millions of Homes Still Being Kept Vacant as Housing Cost... by ethanbond on Thursday October 12, 2023 @10:32AM (#37857715)
We have both problems, but the issue with low construction is not developers simply deciding not to build and/or building but deciding not to sell.

The headwinds on construction are labor shortages, material shortages, zoning, and land prices. Zoning and land prices are both also alleviated by LVT.

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