What the vacancy rate means in Census data
The vacancy rate on this site is the share of all housing units in an area that were vacant when surveyed: vacant units divided by total housing units. It counts every kind of vacancy together - units for rent, units for sale, seasonal and recreational homes, and units vacant for other reasons.
Two consequences for reading the vacancy tables on this site:
- A beach or snowbird area can post a high vacancy rate because many units are seasonal homes, which is different from a neighborhood where rentals sit empty. The seasonal-vacancy ranking separates that slice out.
- The rate says nothing about how long units stay empty or what they would rent for. It is a snapshot share, not a turnover measure.
Vacancy status comes from ACS table B25004; the unit base from B25002. Both are five-year estimates with margins of error - see how to read ACS estimates.
Source: Census Bureau 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimates. Methods: 132 ZCTA methodology. Cite the underlying datasets via the citation page.