Researchers and policy-makers must rely on a number of proxy sources to better understand the status of local and regional economies. Monitoring vacant and abandoned properties is also one way of assessing how recovery might or might not occur in the next one to two years. A high vacancy rate could be a positive sign for recovery, to the extent that a high vacancy rate means lower rental or lease prices. Is that the case in New Hampshire?
Possibly. Metropolitan areas in New Hampshire have a higher vacancy rate than in some other parts of New England.
US Housing and Urban Development has developed a Metropolitan Area Quarterly Residential and Business Vacancy Report using mail delivery data from the US Postal Service (USPS). This data can help us begin to look at vacancies. The USPS defines "vacant" as an urban delivery point that was active in the past, but is not currently occupied (in most cases unoccupied over 90 days) and not currently receiving delivery. An address is considered vacant if that house, apartment, office or building has not been occupied in at least 90 days. The map shows the implied vacancy rate for metropolitan areas in New England, using the USPS data. The un-colored areas are non-metropolitan areas with no data.
For example in the Manchester-Nashua area there were 12,613 business addresses in the quarter ending March 2009. Of those 1,709 were considered vacant by the USPS, for a business vacancy rate of 13.55 percent. The highest business vacancy rate among New England metropolitan areas is in Burlington, Vermont. The lowest is in Barnstable
thanks for this info.
great mapping vacancy in US
Posted by: steven | Nov 29, 2009 at 02:56 AM