18.6 Million U.S. Homes are Vacant

Here's a scary statistic for your Tuesday morning: 18.6 million homes in the US were vacant in the first three months of 2008. That's almost 6% higher than the same time last year and the highest rate since since the census bureau started keeping track in 1956.

San Francisco, which is supposed to be immune from real estate downturns, reflects this statistic from the curb. I pass at least four empty apartments each day that have been on the market for more than 6 months. How does it look in your neighborhood?

Emily Davidson – A former TransUnion insider and a member of Credit.com's expert team. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com editor.

Comments

[Experts on Credit]

I've live in what is currently a pretty trendy area in LA. Lots of houses went up for sale around five years ago, when my neighborhood started getting popular, causing the real estate value to skyrocket. Now, there are even more houses for sale, but I think it's because people are trying to sell before the property value goes down. There's also a lot of apartment vacancies, my guess is because the landlords are using the foreclosure crisis as an opportunity to raise the rent.