Housing Vacancy Rate Hits New Record: Media Don't Notice [View All]

[Hannah Bell]

You would think that an industry that almost completely missed an $8 trillion housing bubble would be trying to do a better job in reporting on the housing market: But that does not appear to be the case.

The Census Bureau reported that the number of vacant units hit a new record high yesterday and it appears that no one noticed.

--Dean Baker

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=10&year=2009&base_name=housing_vacancy_rate_hits_new_1

Vacancy Rates Hit New Record

You probably heard it here first, but you shouldn't have. The rental vacancy rate jumped 0.5 percentage points in the third quarter, while the vacancy rate for ownership units edged up 0.1 percentage point. The long and short is that we have never had such a large glut of housing.

The folks in Congress are giving people $8,000 to increase the rental vacancy rate (i.e. buy a home). Of course this will lead to lower rents, which could cause other potential homeowners to rent rather than own. It may also cause some landlords to convert their rental units into condos. In other words, this is really silly housing market policy.

But hey, it's just $8,000 and it's not like we're giving it to families to pay for their kids' health care or food or anything.


- Dean Baker