Dean Baker on Home Vacancy Rates

Dean Baker has a post on vacancy rates that’s well worth a read.

An exerpt: “This showed the vacancy rate for owner occupied housing hitting 2.7 percent. This is up 50 percent from the 1.8 percent rate of two years ago.”

“This is big news. The vacancy rate for ownership units has hovered near 1.5 percent for 50 years. It had never previously crossed 2.0 percent. The most recent Census Department estimates means that there are more than 2 million ownership units sitting vacant.”