3 ms·

> where an estimated 65 million homes are left empty Wow this number sounded absolutely crazy although I guess it makes sense with 1.4 billion people. I looke

by swozey 3y ago

> where an estimated 65 million homes are left empty Wow this number sounded absolutely crazy although I guess it makes sense with 1.4 billion people. I looked up USA stats - 140 million total homes, 16 million of which are vacant. I wonder how dispersed they are.. 16 million vacant homes in this housing market. Map of vacancies https://landgeist.com/2021/08/03/vacancy-rate-in-the-us/ https://landgeist.com/2021/08/03/vacancy-rate-in-the-us/ This article is interesting but it doesn't line up at all with the one above with the map. Completely different list of which cities have the most vacancies. https://anytimeestimate.com/research/most-vacant-cities-2022/ https://anytimeestimate.com/research/most-vacant-cities-2022... > There are more than 16 million vacant housing units in the U.S. (16,078,532). 5.8% of rental units are vacant, while 1.4% of homeowner units are vacant — a 314% difference. The overall vacancy rate in the U.S. is 11.6%. The most vacant city is Orlando, Florida, with an overall vacancy rate of 15.3% and 160,952 vacant housing units. Seven metros have an overall vacancy rate that exceeds the national rate of 11.6%: Orlando, Florida (15.27%) Miami (14.75%) Tampa, Florida (13.71%) Birmingham, Alabama (13.23%) New Orleans (13.1%) Riverside, California (12.13%) Jacksonville, Florida (11.87%) The least vacant city is Minneapolis, with an overall vacancy rate of 4.6%.

AJ007 3y ago
Another interesting thing to put Chinese housing in to perspective - it is believed to be the largest asset class in the world (worth more than the entirety of the US equity market) and just the alleged value of the unsold inventory exceeds the value of all residential real estate in Japan. Of course it is all a bubble, and after it fully pops, it could be worth 10% of what it is now (or deflates if the Chinese central government wants to drag it out across a few decades.) A lot of the real estate will be worth 0 because of the cost of maintenance and what happens when the maintenance isn't performed.
Nifty3929 3y ago
That vacancy rate is a bit deceptive unless you're clear what you're looking at, and why. Even when housing is conceptually "full," meaning that houses are occupied, or will be occupied very soon - there will still need to be some buffer between occupants. A house might be vacant for a few months while being sold, for example, or for a couple of weeks between tenants. But that's a different sort of vacancy than when a home is intentionally left vacant with no short-term intention of occupying it. This is just like "full employment" is still maybe ~2% or so unemployment, because there are always a few people between jobs, but who will likely become employed very soon. In the US, our 16M vacant homes are the former, "normal" kind. In China, the 65M are actually left vacant indefinitely with no expectation of anybody moving in soon. Not that you can't find some exceptions in both cases, but this is mostly the case.

by swozey 3y ago

AJ007 3y ago

Another interesting thing to put Chinese housing in to perspective - it is believed to be the largest asset class in the world (worth more than the entirety of the US equity market) and just the alleged value of the unsold inventory exceeds the value of all residential real estate in Japan. Of course it is all a bubble, and after it fully pops, it could be worth 10% of what it is now (or deflates if the Chinese central government wants to drag it out across a few decades.) A lot of the real estate will be worth 0 because of the cost of maintenance and what happens when the maintenance isn't performed.

Nifty3929 3y ago

That vacancy rate is a bit deceptive unless you're clear what you're looking at, and why. Even when housing is conceptually "full," meaning that houses are occupied, or will be occupied very soon - there will still need to be some buffer between occupants. A house might be vacant for a few months while being sold, for example, or for a couple of weeks between tenants. But that's a different sort of vacancy than when a home is intentionally left vacant with no short-term intention of occupying it. This is just like "full employment" is still maybe ~2% or so unemployment, because there are always a few people between jobs, but who will likely become employed very soon. In the US, our 16M vacant homes are the former, "normal" kind. In China, the 65M are actually left vacant indefinitely with no expectation of anybody moving in soon. Not that you can't find some exceptions in both cases, but this is mostly the case.