High Home Vacancies

The fallout from the recession and the resultant foreclosure calamity is still growing.

Clearly this is a regional problem with certain parts of the country having active housing markets, its about location.

The numbers are surprising in that I presumed Nevada and California would head the list of states with the largest number of empty properties. The prize seems to go to Maine and Vermont.

There are other factors involved here which are not mentioned. For example, value is not mentioned. We can have Maine with large numbers of empty properties but how much are these properties valued at.

CNN: 13% of all U.S. homes are vacant

...foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.


That's up from 12.1% in 2007.


Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%).


Besides Connecticut, the other states with lowest vacancy rates are California, Iowa, Illinois, Virginia and Washington, all at 9.2% or lower.