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Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

Rental vacancy rates remain near all time lows, construction is still expensive, the population is growing, and most cities are doing little zoning-wise to improve their housing supply. This bubble has a ways to go.

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Population isn't growing much at this point tho. It's trending to 0%.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population...

That site lists the number of migrants as being identical for the last 5 years.

Better stop building those houses now then ....

Not to be intentionally contrarian, but do you have a data source for the vacancy rate?

My understanding is that some states have been losing people net and have still had rents and home values skyrocket. I think an increase in Airbnb would be one possible contributor.

First result: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RRVRUSQ156N

C'mon folks, I know it's fun to slap, "Source?" on every comment, but it took me ~15 seconds to find a number of places where this data exists and is readily available. [0]

'xnx did the same thing as a sibling comment, but I just wanted to add that we can do better! This info is super readily available.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RRVRUSQ156N

While I agree people have the ability to look up others’ claims for themselves, it’s a lazy way to go about it — I make an argument and then say “you look it up!”

The problem is so bad that you can lose population and still be under water with the housing supply.

At the national level, a quick look says population/total units is holding steady, or maybe even trending lower.

1. Population: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/POPTOTUSA647NWDB 2. Housing Units: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ETOTALUSQ176N

i dont think it's population growth.. I mean haven't a million people died of covid?

Pre-Covid the US population was growing about 2m per year.

So, if we had 1m excess Covid deaths in the past ~2 years, the population would still have grown by ~1.5m per year.

Population growth in new areas because of telework. People are fitting into new homes based on not having to drive into urban centers.

It's more a growth of the home-buying demographics. If you look at it, millenials are a larger demographic boom than the baby boomers. They are basically at or entering their years of top demand for buying homes. If you compare the potential demand to supply, you'll see a mismatch that will likely go on for the next 10 years.

I don’t think that COVID significantly affect population demographics in non-elderly cohorts.

Same point in a different context: I would be skeptical of someone arguing that the reason for the Great Resignation is opportunities opening up in the workforce due to COVID casualties. The numbers just aren’t high enough.

> Rental vacancy rates remain near all time lows

Source?

First result: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RRVRUSQ156N

I wonder how much of this has to do with flippers buying up rental properties to 'rehab', put a few coats of paint, change the tiles, flush out undesirables on and sell onward. Higher real estate turnover could put a damper on vacancy rates.

I see. This measures only properties that are currently on the rental market; not empty homes. As corporate ownership increases, which is happening at a startling degree, this makes sense.

This comment can be deleted if it’s out of scope, but I have a question:

Did you even try to find this source on your own? If not, whose obligation do you think it is to supply a source for empirical claims in a civil discussion?

Or if you’re trying to educate yourself or simply asking out of interest, there’s probably a more meaningful way of engaging with the OP than a one word comment: ‘source’.

>Did you even try to find this source on your own?

This would be impossible to do without knowing what the poster meant by vacant rentals. Some would interpret any empty rental unit as vacant, whereas others would interpret it as a rental that is actually available for rent as being vacant. Without a source or other clarification, it can be impossible to know by which definition someone is using.

>if not, whose obligation do you think it is to supply a source for empirical claims in a civil discussion?

The burden on proof is always on the one making the assertion.

> there’s probably a more meaningful way of engaging with the OP than a one word comment: ‘source’

It saves everyone from reading a long sentence when in the end all they are asking is for the person making the assertion to supply proof.

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