Even as the nation’s housing supply tightened to its lowest availability in decades, three dozen U.S. counties had more homes that were vacant than occupied, according to a Social Explorer analysis of recently released 2020 Census data. Many of the 36 counties with more vacancies than occupied homes were located in tourism- and vacation home-dependent areas that have been hit hard by a shortage of affordable housing for service employees.

Cape May County, N.J., had the most vacant units of any of the three dozen; 59 percent of its 99,606 housing units weren’t occupied. The southern New Jersey county was followed by Worcester County, Md., which includes the resort town of Ocean City (59 percent of 56,263) and Camden County, Mo. (53 percent of 39,473), which includes most of the Lake of the Ozarks. The Outer Banks region of North Carolina that includes Dare County (53 percent) ranked fourth, followed by the ski Mecca of Summit County, Colo. (59 percent). Use Social Explorer’s award-winning mapping and report tools to look at the vacant housing situation in your county.

Vacant Housing, 2020 Census. Click here to explore further.

Author: Frank Bass