11% of All U.S. Homes Are Vacant

How bad is the housing market? Bad and getting worse. As of now, 11% of all U.S. homes are empty. Can you imagine how desperate builders and real estate agents must be at this point?

So think about it. Eleven percent of the houses in America are empty. This as builders start to get more bullish, and renting apartments becomes ever more popular. Vacancies in the apartment sector have been falling steadily and dramatically, why? Because we're still recovering emotionally from the toll of the housing crash.

Younger Americans have seen what home ownership has done to their friends and families, and many want no part of it. Credit has become very nearly elitist. Home prices, whatever your particular data provider preference might be, are still falling.

This is not a recipe for a recovering economy.

Things Do Change

This Winter


Today

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..."

I must admit it would explain a lot of what I see on my way driving into work these days.

There is a new "Tallest Ever" Building

Congratulations to unnamed Mod-Blog reader whose company is working on the "Burj Dubai", which is now - several years before it is finished being built - the tallest building in the world. After 9/11, I do not see America building such an obvious "target" for a while, but it is a sign of the growing confidence of the Middle East in their oil-based economic dominance.

Developers of a 1,680-foot skyscraper still under construction in oil-rich Dubai claimed Saturday that it has become the world's tallest building, surpassing Taiwan's Taipei 101 which has dominated the global skyline at 1,667 feet since 2004.
The Burj Dubai is expected to be finished by the end of 2008 and its planned final height has been kept secret. The state-owned development company Emaar Properties, one of the main builders in rapidly developing Dubai, said only that the tower would stop somewhere above 2,275 feet.
When completed, the skyscraper will feature more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, luxury apartments, boutiques, swimming pools, spas, exclusive corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani's first hotel, and a 124th floor observation platform.

I wonder how long until an American capitalist is again willing to "build big"? It will show, at that point, that the War on Terror has been won, and full confidence has been regained.