As I discussing in my first column part of my job is to look into the future of Elizabethton and prepare the city to handle any issues that might arise. This week I would like to look at Housing in Elizabethton. Often housing is one of the more difficult areas for a city to prepare for simply because cities do not build houses!
When urban planners look to into the future, there are a few indicators we consider to determine what direction housing needs to be moving in. Vacancy rate and housing mix are two of the big ones that give us a sense of what cities will need in the future.
In Elizabethton, our housing vacancy rate gives us a good indication if we need new or additional housing. We have a vacant housing rate of just over 12 percent currently. This number typically is close to 10 percent, so 12 percent would indicate that there is not necessarily a high demand for new housing units.
To determine our future housing mix we look to current vacancy rates in owner-occupied and rental-occupied units. Elizabethton has a vacancy rate of 0.9 percent for owner-occupied homes, while the rental vacancy rate is around 9 percent. These vacancy rates should typically be around 2.5 to 3 percent for homeowner units and 5 to 6 percent for rental units. This gives us an indication that we need more owner-occupied units and less rental units.
But wait, we just said we did not need any new housing! Well, this is correct. The existing housing in Elizabethton is enough, but it needs to be transferred to owner-occupied rather than rental property.
These statistics show that there is definitely some work to be done to prepare Elizabethton’s housing for the future. What do you think? Do we need more housing or not? Do we need to provide more housing that can be rented or purchased? Let’s talk about it!
(The data used in this article comes from the US Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey.)
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