This past weekend I was out showing property and it again became apparant that a large percentage of the places I was showing were unoccupied. Today I ran the numbers and what I found was surprising. I searched both single family homes and attached dwellings by city.
The table above shows the number of vacant homes, the number of occupied homes and the ratio of vacant to occupied for each of the selected locales. Louisville and Superior have the fewest vacant houses on the market with 25%. Ft. Collins, Longmont and Boulder are the highest with 43%, 42% and 41% respectively.
The figures are even higher for attached dwellings where a full 46% of active listings are vacant. The chart is below.
These numbers are so high for a few reasons. First, since the market for new homes has slowed down, builders have listed their inventory on the MLS. In a market where builders are selling their homes before they are completed they do not list their homes on the MLS. All of these homes are counted as vacant. For example all but 4 of Eries attached dwellings are new construction. Another reason for the vacant listings are landlords cashing out. The past few years have been tough for landlords locally. Rents have been falling and it has not been uncommon to have vacancies between rentals. Many small landlords have had enough and are selling after their last leases are up. The last reason I can think of for the vacancies is accumulated gain. Many homeowners have accumulated gains over the years and feel comfortable choosing and buying their hext house before selling their current one. I will be interested to compare these statistics with those next spring when the market is moving a bit faster.
