The latest survey by RealtyTrac shows the top five metros that are labeled America's emptiest cities for February 2015. Records indicate some of the nation's cities are still plagued with high vacancy rate. The leading source for comprehensive housing data has released its Q1 2016 US residential property vacancy analysis and claimed that there are over 1.3 million vacant homes out of the almost 85 million residential properties across the US.
RealtyTrac data shows that about 1.6 percent homes are empty in the beginning of February 2016. Compared with the previous residential property vacancy analysis in the third quarter of 2015, this month's data is lower by 9.3 percent. The firm examined all data including owner-occupancy status, foreclosure status (zombie foreclosures), and equity measure against monthly updated vacancy data from the US Postal Service.
"With several notable exceptions, the challenge facing most U.S. real estate markets is not too many vacant homes but too few," said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. "The razor-thin vacancy rates in many markets are placing upward pressure on home prices and rents. While that may be good news for sellers and landlords, it is bad news for buyers and renters and could be bad news for all if prices and rents are inflated above tolerable affordability thresholds."
As Yahoo Real Estate reports, Flint, Michigan (7.5 percent) has the highest percentage of vacant homes. America's emptiest cities also include Detroit (5.3 percent), Youngstown, Ohio (4.4 percent), Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas (3.8 percent), and Atlantic City, New Jersey (3.7 percent). RealtyTrac only measured data of metro areas with at least 100,000 residential properties. Other empty cities that showed higher vacancy rates are: Indianapolis (3.0 percent), Tampa (2.9 percent), Miami (2.8 percent), Cleveland (2.8 percent), and St. Louis (2.6 percent).
"Across the Ohio markets, occupancy demand is fueling a robust seller's market for residential and commercial real estate," said Michael Mahon, president at HER Realtors.
According to the study, most of America's emptiest cities are investment properties. There are 1,044,599 investment properties which account for 76.7 percent vacant homes countrywide. Some of the cities include Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Barnstable, Massachusetts, Salisbury, Maryland, Lexington, Kentucky, and Asheville, North Carolina.