Top 'Empty' Cities (rental and housing vacancies)
posted by Bob at Monday, February 16, 2009
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Monday, February 16, 2009
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12 Comments:
Real Estate
America's Emptiest Cities
Zack O'Malley Greenburg, 02.12.09, 11:20 AM ET
Call it a modern-day tale of two cities.
For decades, Las Vegas, ripe with new construction and economic development, burgeoned into a shimmering urban carnival. Detroit, once the fulcrum of American industry, sagged and rusted under its own weight.
These days, it's the worst of times for both.
Las Vegas edged Detroit for the title of America's most abandoned city. Atlanta came in third, followed by Greensboro, N.C., and Dayton, Ohio. Our rankings, a combination of rental and homeowner vacancy rates for the 75 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, are based on fourth-quarter data released Feb. 3 by the Census Bureau. Each was ranked on rental vacancies and housing vacancies; the final ranking is an average of the two.
In Depth: America's Emptiest Cities
Cities like Detroit and Dayton are casualties of America's lengthy industrial decline. Others, like Las Vegas and Orlando, are mostly victims of the recent housing bust. Boston and New York are among the lone bright spots, while Honolulu is the nation's best with a vacancy rate of 5.8% for homes and a scant 0.5% for rentals.
Still, empty neighborhoods are becoming an increasingly daunting problem across the country. The national rental vacancy rate now stands at 10.1%, up from 9.6% a year ago; homeowner vacancy has edged up from 2.8% to 2.9%. Richmond, Va.'s rental vacancy rate of 23.7% is the worst in America, while Orlando's 7.4% rate is lousiest on the homeowner side. Detroit and Las Vegas are among the worst offenders by both measures--the Motor City sports vacancy rates of 19.9% for rentals and 4% for homes; Sin City has rates of 16% and 4.7%, respectively.
"It's a mess," says Vegas developer Laurence Hallier. "Right now, things are just frozen. Everybody's scared."
Hallier, 40, knows from experience. His $600 million Panorama Towers complex was a tremendous success at its inception three years ago. The first of his four planned residential skyscrapers sold out in six months; the second, which opened in 2007, sold out in 12 weeks. As the third tower neared completion last fall, Hallier had sold 92% of its units. Then the recession hit, and only half the units ended up closing. Hallier says it will take years to break even, and plans for the fourth tower have been delayed indefinitely.
There are others who've made--and lost--far worse gambles on Vegas property. In 2007, Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva and partner Nochi Dankner paid $1.25 billion to buy a 34.5-acre site on the Strip, with plans to build an $8 billion mega-casino modeled after New York's Plaza Hotel. By November, the value of the lot had plummeted to $650 million--half what they paid for it. Groundbreaking on the casino has been pushed back to 2010, and today, the land may be worth less than the $625 million Tshuva and Dankner borrowed to buy it.
The Plaza debacle is emblematic of the problems afflicting millions of property owners in Vegas and around the country--and can explain, in large part, the origins of America's housing crisis.
As real estate prices skyrocketed during the boom, consumers took out massive loans to buy homes, assuming values would continue to rise. Instead they took a nosedive, especially in places like Las Vegas, Florida and Phoenix, where the housing boom had created excess inventory and so-called "bad loans" were rampant. Many homeowners suddenly found themselves with properties worth far less than the mortgages they'd taken out. In the worst cases, banks foreclosed, leaving people without homes--and with more debt than they'd had to begin with.
The situation in places like Las Vegas is bad enough, but Detroit's problems run much deeper. Though its vacancy rates are marginally better than Sin City's, Motown has been on the empty side for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, Detroit's population swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.
But starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Detroit's population is now 900,000--half what it was in the middle of the century--and many of its neighborhoods languish in varying states of decay. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency.
Yet after more than half a century, countless scholars, politicians, community organizers developers and nonprofit workers have been unable to come up with a solution to fix Detroit.
Will Las Vegas eventually suffer the same fate?
"I don't think Vegas is overbuilt," says Hallier. "Despite what everybody says, Vegas still has 2 million people."
Time will tell if this sort of optimism is warranted. Cynics who've witnessed Detroit's decline might liken Hallier's opinions to another Dickens oeuvre: Great Expectations.
In Depth: America's Emptiest Cities
Like I have said before, who knew that the Saint Paul housing inspectors would be spending so much time condemning houses in Vegas, and Detroit, and Orlando and Pheonix and Chicago, and Greesnborough, and Riverside and all of those communities that have the highest vacancy rates in the country.
If you spent any time on this blog that is what you would have no choice than to believe.
AAAAARRRRGGGGGGGgggg!!!
Its a national problem folks.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Only problem is Chuck, the vacant housing problem here is compounded by predatory housing code enforcement.
How many of you have written USSupreme Cour Briefs?
13 parcels "taken"under color o corruption........
Thanks to Nancy Lazaryan for her tireless fight
http://www.photoworks.com/util/slideShowLarge2.jsp;jsessionid=330BAF5CAC9B1FAA264BB399CF281F08?stackID=50284357&cb=PW_APM&guest=true&toh=&svr=web27
Henry, why didn't you take that time to tell us where we're full of crap? We already know that you think we are, you and your ilk haven't provided anything to prove it.
By the way, I'm the one who sent this story to Bob. I got sick of the talk about St Paul becoming Detroit. Well, Vegas beat Detroit out and St Paul is not even on the radar.
Eric
Eric St.Paul will be on the radar soon if this dumb ass mayor doesn't get his shit together.
You libs must be happy that Barry's throwen money to the citys that could control their spending.Money to fill the budget gap.Barry has done this due to the government being the largest employer in the country and if they don't get the money heaven forbid they lay off.Barry doesn't want government to get smaller so he saves their jobs on the backs of our children.Count them as jobs saves.
This guy is going to make Bush(which spent to much) look like Lincoln.
Lets get this straight before you think I'm Republican-I'm not for corporate welfare.Bailing people out is doomsday for all.We now live in a country that says you need now responsibility!SCARY!
Ted
The did the top ten states and of course Minnesota isn't in the top ten states in vacancy rates...
Those Saint Paul code enforcement guys have to be running around all over the country causing problems.
LMAO...
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
St Paul is just a mismanaged city that is going into decline, which will end up like Detroit. The pompous and cynical leadership has set the direction.
Ted,
Barack is soaring with high approval numbers. MOST Americans were in favor of the stimulus package. You are terribly mistaken is you think we're shaking in some corner. The opposition was complaining that there is not enough in there to address the mortgage crisis. The President just presented a plan, using the money approved by everyone back in September under another President, to address foreclosures, inflated rates, and refinancing at a lower rate for those who've kept up on their mortgage.
Bush was looking like Hoover, when this is over, he will have set a new low for Presidential lack of achievement.
Its not Barry Obama, its President Obama.
-----
225
Saint Paul is still one of the best managed cities, according to the organizations that measure and rate cities (actually their bonding prowess) on their fiscal soundness.
Those organizations would be Standard and Poor's, and Moody's.
2:25 is the typical A-Democracy poster. Doesn't read a damn thing and pops off like a fart in the night.
Saint Paul is not in the top 15 of the country's area's that are going vacant. And, Detroit is not your number one benchmark anymore, its Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is America's most abandoned city.
Eric
Eric said;
2:25 is the typical A-Democracy poster. Doesn't read a damn thing and pops off like a fart in the night.
My response;
Eric you have been coming here for years and trying to convince folks they were not victims of the city. That is like trying to convince someone they didn't get raped. You just keep trying to cover your party's ass. The hardon's are lining up and I don't see any vaseline among any of them.
Eric,
You have the burdon of proof in this crowd to prove the city is on the level. You can jive talk all day and fail to prove a thing. Only a handful of people here believe it.
Since you failed to prove it, its appropriate to remind people of what a foul and messed up city St Paul has become. We need comments like my 2:25 comments to counter your and Chucks efforts to spin the truth into something that it isn't.
I don't have to prove the city is on the level. That's not what I do here. I show that your accusations and tin-foil rumor mongering is baseless and factless.
Like the one you tried to put forth about St Paul being mis-managed. You provide no proof except the smell of your breath as you talk. I say its not, then cite two corporations that analyze and rate cities based on the management and fiscal soundness.
See, I've backed up my claim, and pwned you.
Eric
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