The city of Dayton has received another dubious distinction. CNBC has compiled a list of the 10 emptiest cities in the country, and as Emily McCord reports, Dayton has earned the number two spot.
There’s good and bad news for Dayton. The good news is that the homeowner vacancy rate is maintaining its downward trend since it peaked last year. The bad news is when you combine the number of vacant homes and the number vacant rental properties, Dayton is second only to Orlando, Florida, as one of the countries emptiest cities. These numbers are based on data from the census bureau that compares 75 of the largest US cities. Paul Toscano is the reporter for CNBC who compiled list. He says cities can suffer from the loss of property taxes, but it can be mixed news in terms of the housing market.
"For some people, if you're living there already and your home value is going down that's not necessarily a good thing. Your home may be underwater if you have recently purchased it before the bubble. But if you're someone looking to move there, the prices are going to be depressed," says Toscano. "Affordability certainly goes up, especially in these places that have a lot of distressed homes."
Toscano adds that Dayton is a smaller city than many of the 75 metro areas, and that could make the problem look a little worse than it really is. Still, Dayton's total gross vacancy rate is 16.9 percent, more than 6 percent above the large city average.
