Supply and demand in the housing market remain seriously out of whack. The Commerce Department reports housing vacancies remain near record levels. And a staggering 21% of housing units built since 2000 sit empty. Thats a whole lot of cheap drywall and expensive countertops.
But its likely to be only half the story. “People focusing on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data for an accurate picture of the current housing market are missing the bigger picture, writes the inimitable Dr. Housing Bubble. This is like looking at Mercury and thinking you have a full picture of our solar system. This is the data that most in the public will be able to see without digging deeper into foreclosure and pre-foreclosure data, and this is what is now widely known as the shadow inventory.”
