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>there are currently 28 vacant housing for every homeless person in America. Ok, now factor in all the millenials and gen z living at home while working. Or ot

>there are currently 28 vacant housing for every homeless person in America. Ok, now factor in all the millenials and gen z living at home while working. Or other under-housed invididuals.

belval 3y ago
Honestly those calculations are always misleading in nature. There are 28 vacant units per homeless person in America, where are those 28 units, in what state are they? If housing in some abandoned part of Detroit was interesting then homeless people would not be pooling in Los Angeles. It reminds me of the yearly "Jeff Bezos made 4 billions today" because Amazon had a good day or the (very Canadian) "Average Canadian is 100k in debt" (because they factor in mortgages). It's sensationalistic journalism that completely avoid any type of critical thinking because it's much easier to ignore all the rational explanations in the pursuit of clicks.
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  IIRC these numbers also include things like months that a unit sits empty while trying to rent it out.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Those numbers always include houses vacant for any reason. Includes houses for sale, that need to be tourable, and houses that sold, that about to be occupied by new owners. Same applies for houses for rent.
ajmurmann 3y ago
And factor in how long it takes for someone to move out, the place to go on the market and the next person to move in. My city currently has about 5% vacancy rate. That means a given unit on average is empty about a month every two years. That alone can be reasonably eaten up just by people moving. This leaves very little room for choosing where to live and in what type of unit. We really need to be closer to 10%
sloreti 3y ago
Whenever someone cites the fact that there are millions of vacant homes across the US as evidence of either oversupply or an inequitable distribution, they're almost always misunderstanding that real estate has a "natural vacancy rate" of ~6%. With real estate, there is inherently time in which it lays empty between tenants moving in and out or being sold. When a place like California has over a million of vacant homes, that still makes for a vacancy rate below the "natural vacancy rate"! The other big category of vacant housing is in places that are depopulating due to lack of jobs. We could be giving decaying homes in the Rust Belt, but they'd be more of a liability to the new owner than anything else.
- gremlinsinc 3y ago
  are short term rentals part of that 6 percent? Because I'm sure it's way more than that if you calculated homes vacant that do not have a permanent resident with at least a 6 to 12 month lease.
fallingknife 3y ago
This is a stupid metric trying to compare 2 unrelated things. An increase could mean a better housing supply or a drop in homelessness. A decrease could mean more homeless people or less rental turnover. It would be infinity with no homeless problem. Which way am I supposed to want this number to go?

>there are currently 28 vacant housing for every homeless person in America. Ok, now factor in all the millenials and gen z living at home while working. Or other under-housed invididuals.

belval 3y ago

Honestly those calculations are always misleading in nature. There are 28 vacant units per homeless person in America, where are those 28 units, in what state are they? If housing in some abandoned part of Detroit was interesting then homeless people would not be pooling in Los Angeles. It reminds me of the yearly "Jeff Bezos made 4 billions today" because Amazon had a good day or the (very Canadian) "Average Canadian is 100k in debt" (because they factor in mortgages). It's sensationalistic journalism that completely avoid any type of critical thinking because it's much easier to ignore all the rational explanations in the pursuit of clicks.

bcrosby95 3y ago
IIRC these numbers also include things like months that a unit sits empty while trying to rent it out.
ianburrell 3y ago
Those numbers always include houses vacant for any reason. Includes houses for sale, that need to be tourable, and houses that sold, that about to be occupied by new owners. Same applies for houses for rent.

ajmurmann 3y ago

And factor in how long it takes for someone to move out, the place to go on the market and the next person to move in. My city currently has about 5% vacancy rate. That means a given unit on average is empty about a month every two years. That alone can be reasonably eaten up just by people moving. This leaves very little room for choosing where to live and in what type of unit. We really need to be closer to 10%

sloreti 3y ago

Whenever someone cites the fact that there are millions of vacant homes across the US as evidence of either oversupply or an inequitable distribution, they're almost always misunderstanding that real estate has a "natural vacancy rate" of ~6%. With real estate, there is inherently time in which it lays empty between tenants moving in and out or being sold. When a place like California has over a million of vacant homes, that still makes for a vacancy rate below the "natural vacancy rate"! The other big category of vacant housing is in places that are depopulating due to lack of jobs. We could be giving decaying homes in the Rust Belt, but they'd be more of a liability to the new owner than anything else.

gremlinsinc 3y ago
are short term rentals part of that 6 percent? Because I'm sure it's way more than that if you calculated homes vacant that do not have a permanent resident with at least a 6 to 12 month lease.

fallingknife 3y ago

This is a stupid metric trying to compare 2 unrelated things. An increase could mean a better housing supply or a drop in homelessness. A decrease could mean more homeless people or less rental turnover. It would be infinity with no homeless problem. Which way am I supposed to want this number to go?