Real Estate Fun(damentals)

Excellent post over at calculated risk regarding a personal interest of mine: single family home vacancy.

Money quote: "It is easy to see why many housing economists view the current “low” level of housing production as a plus for the overall health of the housing market, even before allowing for the current high number of residential mortgage loans either seriously delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure. It is also easy to understand why competent housing analysts believe that any government policies designed to encourage additional construction of housing units would be “dumber than dishwater,” and that the only government policies designed to encourage increased “AD&C” activity would NOT be acquisition, development, and construction lending, but instead “acquisition, destruction, and or conversion” of existing vacant housing units."