Page 70 - Lighting Magazine December 2017

forECast 2018 | Vacancy rates
“The low vacant property rates in the Sea le region are good for landlords and sellers, but not so good for buyers or renters,” says Ma hew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate, covering the Sea le market, where the 0.9 percent vacant property rate was well below the national average and ranked No. 41 lowest among the 149 metro areas analyzed in the report. “It is indicative of the very hot hous- ing market in Sea le and I believe that the percentages could drop even further as we move into 2018.”
Among 405 counties with at least 50,000 residential properties, those with the lowest vacancy rates were Loudon County, Va.; Douglas County, Colo.; Spotsylvania County, Va.; Hays County, Tx.; and Shelby County, Alabama.
“As home values and rental rates have continued to escalate across Southern California, vacant prop- erty rates have continued to decline across the region,” said Michael Mahon, President at First Team Real Estate covering the Southern California market, where 23 zip codes across the 573 zip codes in the six-county region had no vacant residential properties. “With housing a ordability becoming an increasing topic of concern, many residential properties are being converted to rental property inventory in a empt to take advantage of the increasing demand of rental properties within the marketplace.”
Nationwide, there have been a total of 14,312 properties in the foreclosure process and vacant as of the end of the third quarter of 2017. Among 149 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 residential properties (1 to 4 units), those with the most va- cant “zombie” foreclosures were New York-Newark-Jersey City, N.Y.-N.J.; Philadelphia; Chicago; Miami; and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida.
According to the Dodge Outlook Report, new construction starts are expected to rise across all sectors.
New Construction Predicted to Increase in 2018
C
starts for 2018 will climb 3 percent to $765 billion.
hicago-based Dodge Data & Analytics released its 2018 Dodge Construc- tion Outlook in November. The report, a mainstay in construction industry forecasting and business planning, predicts that total U.S. construction
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