How is the vacancy factor?

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Submitted by cv2 on May 16, 2008 - 4:32pm

I strolled through downtown last night and could not help to noticed that finished condos are only about one-third lit up. It means that probably two-thirds of those units are not occupied at this point. With the population decline locally, this is really bad because in a sense that you are running out of people to sell the units to :)

Does anybody know the statistics on the vacancies?

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Those condos have always
Submitted by j on May 17, 2008 - 6:29am.

Those condos have always been vacant. My father has joked about the new condo development downtown for years. The fire department staffs partly based on downtown population, so they have gone door to door for years. They noticed that claimed occupancy rates are very wrong (maybe because of tax implications).

I have also noticed that many units, in complexes that have been finish for years, have paper on the windows. I don't know if the paper was never taken off, or if "investors" are trying to protect their "investment" from the sun.

In good times, like the boom
Submitted by cv2 on May 17, 2008 - 3:49pm.

In good times, like the boom times two, three years ago, everybody want their own dig. In bad times, people hunk down together by double up or move back to parent's house. Right now we are either in a slow down or recession depend on who you talk to, vacancy will be even worse.

But you are saying that even during good times, there are lots of empty units. Is it possible that we have more home than people forever? We need either foreign investors or illegal aliens to fill them up?