By Kiri Blakeley
Realtor.com
Read: https://rltor.cm/eGaFCr
July 9, 2026
Realtor.com
Amid a deepening housing affordability crisis, roughly 1 in 10 homes in the country is sitting vacant, concludes a new report.
Around 14.5 million houses are empty, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by personal finance site LendingTree. However, only a shockingly low number of these homes—fewer than 800,000—are actually up for sale.
Among the states, Maine has the highest overall vacancy rate at 21%, while Connecticut has the lowest, with just 7% of homes there sitting empty. Nationally, 10.1% of all homes are vacant.
However, as the report highlights, a high vacancy rate does not guarantee more opportunities for homebuyers.
“Not all vacant homes are available to people looking for housing,” Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst, says in the report. “A key question isn’t how many homes are vacant, but how many are available for someone to buy or rent.”
ADMIN: If we could think OUTSIDE OF THE BOX we could help a percent of these homes to re-enter the market as rentals or homes for sale.
- Think about how vacant homes could be taxed differently to disincentivize leaving them vacant.
- Taxing often vacant second homes or vacation homes differently could generate money that could be earmarked for affordable housing projects. The owners of these ‘additional’ homes have the where-with-all to pay a little more in taxes to off-set the removal of the homes from the rental or home buyers market. (pied-à-terre taxes)
- See what people are saying on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CJNAafew4/
- A Facebook commenter shared, “Many elderly keep their homes because of the huge capital gains taxes they would have to pay if they have had that home for 20 or more years. If that tax for elderly long time home owners were eliminated, many more properties would be available for first time home buyers.”
- And another Facebook commenter had this unique take on it, “Houses should be handled like thanksgiving dinner: Nobody gets seconds until everyone’s got their first.”
