Yahoo finance, via something called 24/7 Wallstreet, has voted Tucson the sickest housing market in the country.
They based their conclusion on the very high homeowner & rental vacancy rate. Period.
And far be it from me to defend the condition of the Tucson housing market – I don’t work the Tucson Metro, only the Foothills. But the methodology used in this analysis is not a reliable measure of the market – not for here in Tucson anyway.
Yet the conclusions they reach, wrongly, smear us all.
High vacancy rates go hand in hand with being a vacation seasonal/winter visitor resort destination - there are lots of vacation rental homes here in Tucson that are not occupied by their owners. Not ever. Why? Because they’re strictly vacation rental homes. Period. And rental homes are also vacant for a good portion of the year; Why? because no one spends good money to come here when it’s 110, or even when it’s 99, and so vacation rental homes are not occupied all the time.
They just aren’t.
And if they’re including condos in their figures, forgetaboutit. There are oodles of condos in the foothills alone whose only purpose in life is to serve the seasonal/winter visitor market. The rest of the time they are vacant.
And if you are going to use vacancies as a criteria, how could you put Tucson up against Dayton Ohio and Indianapolis and Detroit. Please, tell me how many people vacation for months at a time – hence the need for vacation rental homes – in Detroit, or Dayton or Indianapolis or St Louis. Give me break.
The vacancies being measured in those cities are owner occupied homes that are no longer owner occupied because the owners have bailed out and moved on. Period. And while there is also plenty of that in Tucson, there is also a high percentage of homes whose only purpose is to serve the seasonal/winter visitor rental market.
I think a far more accurate gauge of the market is simply supply and demand. You know, supply and demand as in homes for sale and homes sold. At this very moment there are 4174 homes for sale in the greater Tucson Metro and, Oscar, the envelope please, 984 sold in the last 30 days.
That, Mr & Ms 24/7 Wallstreet, equals a 4.24 month supply. And by anyone’s measure, that’s a very lean supply.
