Vacancy rates across the country fall as the demand for housing rise

According to a report that has been issued by the Census Bureau, the US home vacancy rate has fallen from 2.2% to 2.1% in the second quarter of 2012. The figure a year ago was 2.5%..

Vacancy rates are calculated by measuring properties that are empty or for sale, and the latest figures have shown that they are at their lowest rate since 2006 in yet another sign that the housing market is undergoing a sustained recovery.

The number of homes available is falling and some of this has to do with a slow down in the number of new homes being built. Speaking about the fall in rates, an economist for IHS Global Insight, Patrick Newport, said: “The reason home construction has been so low since 2009 is because so many people moved back in with their parents.  The household formation rate just dropped sharply so we didn’t need to build a lot of homes.”

Home seizures were also reported to have fallen by 22% according to RealtyTrac Inc Lenders data released recently, and this shows that lenders have been turning to alternatives rather than using repossession as a method of recovering their money.

There has also been an increase in the number of people renting properties across the US since the peak of homeownership rates, with an addition five million people preferring this option ahead of purchasing their own property.  Added to this a number of people who would normally be living on their own are returning to live with their parents, which means that the demand to construct new properties is not as high as it was.