The 5 U.S. states with the highest housing vacancy rates in 2026

A vacant home sounds like an opportunity. In a country where buyers routinely compete against multiple offers, where inventory remains well below pre-pandemic levels in dozens of metro areas, and where the national median home price sits above $322,000, the existence of nearly 15 million vacant housing units looks like a ready-made solution to the affordability crisis. The reality is far less straightforward. The Census Bureau classifies a home as vacant if it isn't someone's primary residence, and that definition sweeps in a broad range of properties that have nothing to do with an empty house waiting for a buyer. Vacation homes occupied only during ski season or summer months, cabins used for hunting and fishing a few weeks a year, timeshare condominiums, properties rented but not yet moved into, and homes sold but awaiting their new owners all count as vacant. The number tells you how many homes aren't occupied full-time. It doesn't tell you how many are available to buy or rent.

The distinction matters because high vacancy rates don't always signal weak housing markets. In states with large concentrations of vacation properties and second homes, the vacancy figure gets inflated by seasonal housing that sits empty for most of the year without adding anything to the supply of year-round homes. In other states, vacancies are driven by something entirely different: population loss, economic restructuring, and homes that sit empty not because they're in demand as getaways but because no one is moving in to replace the people who left. The national vacancy rate of 10.43% has been declining, dropping 0.36 percentage points between 2022 and 2023 as rising mortgage rates discouraged homeowners from moving and tightened inventory further.

LendingTree analyzed U.S. Census Bureau 2023 American Community Survey data to rank all 50 states and the District of Columbia by their overall housing vacancy rates. The study found that the 10 states with the lowest vacancy rates have average median home values of $408,382, while the 10 with the highest average just $247,850, a gap of more than $160,000 that reflects the fundamental relationship between demand, scarcity, and price. States where people want to live and where housing is hard to find have lower vacancy rates and higher values. States with smaller populations, more rural land, and larger seasonal housing inventories tend to sit at the other end of the scale, though notable exceptions, such as Florida and Alaska, combine high vacancy rates with home values above the national median. LendingTree chief consumer finance analyst Matt Schulz pointed out that sparsely populated states with fewer major urban centers tend to have more land on which to build, which can lead to oversupply and then more vacancies.

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Maine has led the nation in housing vacancy for 13 of the past 14 years, and the 2023 data confirms that streak is intact. The state's overall vacancy rate of 21.09% means that more than one in five of its 746,552 housing units sits unoccupied, a figure that translates to 157,467 vacant homes and a rate more than double the national average. The median home value is $266,400, below the national median of $322,180, and the vacancy rate fell 0.70 percentage points from 2022, one of the larger year-over-year declines in the country. None of those numbers, taken in isolation, would suggest a state in the grip of a housing crisis. But Maine is in one, and the vacancy rate is central to understanding why.

Seasonal vacation properties make up 19% of Maine's total housing stock, the highest concentration of vacation homes per capita in the country. Bangor Daily News reporting on the LendingTree data noted that once those seasonal properties are removed from the count, only about 2% of Maine's homes are vacant for any other reason, a figure that makes the actual year-round market "exceptionally tight in most places." A healthy housing market typically maintains a vacancy rate of around 5% among available homes to give buyers and renters enough options to make informed choices without creating artificial scarcity. Maine falls far below that threshold for non-seasonal housing, meaning the state that appears to have the most empty homes in the country actually has among the fewest available to people who want to live there full-time.

The pandemic accelerated the problem. Remote workers from Boston, New York, and other expensive metro areas discovered they could relocate to Maine's coastal and inland communities while keeping their city salaries, and that influx of purchasing power drove prices sharply higher in towns that had previously been affordable for local workers. Communities within commuting distance of Portland, such as Yarmouth, Falmouth, and Cape Elizabeth, have seen median home prices climb 18% annually in recent years, well above the national pace. MaineHousing, the state's housing finance authority, has responded with below-market mortgage rates through its First Home Loan program, and the state's affordable housing pipeline is producing units well above historical averages. But the underlying deficit created by decades of underbuilding, combined with the permanent conversion of seasonal homes into primary residences by pandemic-era transplants, has left Maine with a structural gap between supply and demand that the vacancy rate alone completely obscures.

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Vermont's 20.06% vacancy rate ranks second in the nation, with 67,606 of the state's 337,072 housing units classified as unoccupied. The median home value is $290,500, and the vacancy rate declined 0.62 percentage points from 2022. Like Maine, Vermont's headline vacancy figure is dominated by seasonal and recreational properties. The state's 2025-2029 Housing Needs Assessment found that more than 51,000 homes, roughly 15% of the total housing stock, are classified as seasonal, occasional-use, or vacation homes, giving Vermont the second-highest seasonal home rate in the nation behind Maine. These three New England states (Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire) have held the top three spots for seasonal housing concentration since the Census Bureau began tracking the category in 1940.

The seasonal skew is even more dramatic when viewed as a share of vacant homes rather than total housing. The MortgagePoint's analysis of the latest LendingTree data found that 75.8% of Vermont's vacant homes are seasonal or recreational properties, the highest share of any state in the country. That means roughly one in seven homes statewide sits empty during the offseason, concentrated in mountain communities, such as Stowe, Killington, and the Lake Champlain region, where out-of-state buyers use them as ski-season or summer getaways. These properties are well maintained and often high-value, but they contribute nothing to the supply of year-round housing that Vermont's permanent residents need. The state's rental vacancy rate of 3.7% as of 2024 reflects how tight the non-seasonal market actually is, with renters competing for a limited pool of full-time units in a state where new construction has historically been slow and permitting requirements can be challenging.

Vermont's housing deficit is compounded by an aging population and an aging housing stock. The state has the third-oldest population in the country, and older residents aging in place have kept many homes off the sale market for younger potential buyers. An estimated 58% of Vermont's housing inventory was built before 1978, when lead-based paint was banned for residential use, creating maintenance and health challenges that add to the cost of occupying older units. The state's Housing Needs Assessment projects that Vermont will need between 27,000 and 41,000 new housing units by 2030 to normalize vacancy rates, accommodate new households, and replace homes lost to deterioration and conversion. Meeting that target would require a construction pace well above what the state has historically achieved, and the gap between what's needed and what's being built is the defining feature of Vermont's housing crisis, one that a 20% headline vacancy rate makes invisible to anyone who doesn't look past the seasonal homes.

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Alaska ranks third with a vacancy rate of 18.24%, accounting for 59,745 vacant homes out of a total housing stock of 327,610. The median home value of $333,300 sits above the national median, placing Alaska alongside Florida and New Hampshire as high-vacancy states that don't fit the pattern of low home values and weak demand that typically accompanies elevated vacancy figures. Alaska's vacancy rate fell 0.71 percentage points from 2022, one of the steeper declines in the country, and the state has seen its overall rate drop 7.4 percentage points since the post-financial-crisis peak in 2009, the third-largest improvement of any state behind Florida and Arizona.

The drivers of Alaska's vacancy rate are a combination of seasonal recreation and geographic remoteness that has no parallel in the Lower 48. Fishing cabins, hunting lodges, and seasonal worker housing in rural and coastal communities account for a significant share of the vacant inventory, and the state's extreme climate means that many properties in remote areas are simply uninhabitable for portions of the year. Alaska's housing market operates under conditions that differ fundamentally from the contiguous states. Limited buildable land, extreme weather that shortens the construction season, high transportation costs for building materials, and a population distributed across vast distances create a market where supply is permanently constrained and the cost of adding new units is significantly higher than in most other states.

The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation reported that the cost of homeownership in the state increased 52% between 2018 and 2024, while rental costs rose 24% over the same period, confirming that the housing shortage is real despite the elevated vacancy figure. The National Low Income Housing Coalition calculates that a full-time worker in Alaska needs to earn $29.73 per hour to afford a two-bedroom rental at fair market rent without spending more than 30% of income on housing, a threshold that exceeds what many workers in the state's tourism, fishing, and service industries actually earn. Anchorage, home to roughly 40% of the state's population, is operating as a constrained seller's market in 2026, with modest inventory, stable prices trending upward at roughly 5.6% year over year, and sustained demand from military households at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and civilians relocating from the Lower 48. The vacancy rate that puts Alaska near the top of this list reflects the state's unique geography and seasonal housing patterns, not an abundance of available homes for the people who live and work there year-round.

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West Virginia's 16.08% vacancy rate ranks fourth nationally, but the story behind the number is fundamentally different from the three states above it. Maine, Vermont, and Alaska have high vacancy rates because seasonal and recreational properties inflate the count. West Virginia's vacancies are driven by population loss, economic decline, and homes that are deteriorating or abandoned rather than being held for seasonal use. The state has 138,205 vacant housing units out of 859,653 total, and the median home value of $155,600 is the second-lowest on the entire LendingTree list, well below the national median of $322,180 and less than half the average median value among the 10 states with the lowest vacancy rates.

The Housing Can't Wait coalition described the state's situation as a crisis that manifests differently across its communities. In many cities and towns, dozens of dilapidated homes sit vacant or abandoned, putting downward pressure on surrounding property values and straining local tax revenues that municipalities depend on to fund schools, roads, and public services. The vacancy rate declined 0.58 percentage points from 2022, a meaningful improvement, but the underlying dynamics haven't changed. West Virginia has been losing population for decades as younger residents leave for states with stronger job markets and higher wages, and the homes they leave behind often aren't attractive enough or in good enough condition to draw new buyers or tenants. The National Low Income Housing Coalition calculates that a full-time worker in the state needs to earn $18.94 per hour to afford a two-bedroom rental at fair market rent ($985 per month), a figure that is among the lowest in the country but still out of reach for many West Virginians in lower-wage occupations.

The paradox of West Virginia's housing market is that the state simultaneously has too many homes and not enough of the right ones. The vacant properties that drive the state's high rate are disproportionately older, poorly maintained, and located in communities where economic activity has contracted. Meanwhile, the areas of the state that are growing, particularly the eastern panhandle within commuting distance of the Washington metro area and college towns anchored by West Virginia University and Marshall University, face tight inventory and rising prices that resemble the dynamics of more expensive states. The Fahe Network, a regional housing organization, invested more than $85 million in West Virginia between 2019 and 2023, assisting 1,728 households through housing development, home repair, and financial counseling, but the scale of the vacancy problem, tens of thousands of deteriorating units spread across rural communities, requires intervention at a level that exceeds what private and nonprofit organizations can achieve on their own.

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Florida's 15.19% vacancy rate rounds out the top five, but the scale of its vacant housing stock sets it apart from every other state on this list. With 1,531,445 vacant homes out of 10,082,356 total units, Florida has more empty residences than the other four top-vacancy states combined. The state's vacancy rate fell 0.57 percentage points from 2022 and has dropped a remarkable 8.8 percentage points since 2009, the largest decline of any state in the country, reflecting the massive wave of demand that has transformed Florida's housing market over the past 15 years. The median home value of $325,000 sits above the national median, one of three high-vacancy states (alongside Alaska and New Hampshire) where strong demand coexists with an elevated share of unoccupied homes.

The explanation is straightforward. Reporting from Realtor.com and StatsAmerica found that approximately 741,429 of Florida's vacant homes, roughly half the total, are classified as seasonally vacant. These are properties owned by snowbirds and seasonal visitors who occupy them during the winter months and leave them empty the rest of the year. Michael Overway, CEO of the SWFL Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, told Gulf Shore Business that homes sitting empty for people who stay only a few months a year are putting direct pressure on year-round residents. His organization has been rehousing nurses, sheriff's deputies, and government employees at higher rates than in its previous 30-year history because the seasonal inventory removes homes from permanent circulation that teachers, police officers, restaurant workers, and service-industry employees need to rent or buy.

Florida's housing market sits at the intersection of two competing forces. The state's population growth, driven by retirees, remote workers, and corporate relocations attracted by no state income tax, continues to push demand and prices higher in its largest metro areas. At the same time, the seasonal housing stock that drives the vacancy rate acts as a parallel market that serves a different population entirely, one that arrives in November and leaves in April and has no need for the year-round affordability that permanent residents depend on. The vacancy rate has been declining steadily as Florida's population has grown and as the pandemic era converted some seasonal properties into primary residences, but the structural split between the seasonal and year-round markets remains. For full-time Florida residents competing against seasonal buyers with out-of-state purchasing power, the state's 1.5 million vacant homes are largely theoretical. The ones that matter, the ones available for rent or sale to someone who plans to live there 12 months a year, represent a far smaller and more competitive market than the headline number suggests.