Our Changing Globe

Archive for the ‘home vacancies’ Category

According to a just released Census Bureau report, a record number of 19.1 million homes stood empty during the first quarter of this year, and the number of vacant homes, which includes foreclosures, properties for sale and also vacation properties, jumped from a figure of 18.6 million the previous year.

The report lists a total of 4.2 million vacant homes for rent, and 4.9 million seasonal properties that were only used for a part of the year, and says that the number of people that own their own residences declined for the third straight quarter to 67.3%.

Foreclosures were included in a part of the Census Bureau, that also included vacation homes intended for year-round use, as well as homes that were unoccupied because they are under renovation, and there were 7.9 million such properties vacant in the first quarter, which is up from 7.5 million a year earlier.

What might seem odd however, is that the ‘percentage’ rate of all U.S. homes empty and for sale, known as the ‘vacancy rate’, actually fell to 2.7 percent in the first quarter, and the reason that it is thought to have fallen, is either because the number of homes on the market declined because they were sold, or because their owners gave up trying to market them, and according to National Association of Realtors, the inventory of homes on the market averaged 3.7 million in each of 2009′s first three months.

The world financial crisis, plus falling home prices seem to have pretty much destroyed homebuyer confidence, and the percentage of people who said they plan to buy a home in the next six months, dropped to a 26-year low in March, and the decline in real estate prices is expected to continue into 2010.

The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that the share of mortgages in foreclosure rose to an all-time high of 3.3% in the fourth quarter, and added that delinquencies, or the percentage of home loans having payments which are thirty days or more overdue, increased to 7.88%, making it the highest number on record since 1972.