Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa Listed in Forbes Top 10 Emptiest Cities List

Three cities from Florida are named in Forbes ‘America’s Emptiest Cities’ list: Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tampa. At the beginning of 2010, Orlando’s showed a single-family home vacancy rate of 8%.

To determine the ranking, cities were rated for each quarter of 2010 by single-family and rental vacancy rates, and then Forbes averaged the ranks. The rental vacancy rate for 2010 for Las Vegas at 13.5% was reported to be near the 2010 national average for rental vacancy rate.


The average national rental vacancy rate was 10.1% in 2008 and 9.6% in 2007. Orlando’s home vacancy rate in 2008 was 7.4% — the worst nationwide.

Forbes Top 10 of America’s emptiest cities with the percentage (%) value of their home vacancy and rental vacancy rates
Orlando, Florida
Home vacancy rate: 4.3
Rental vacancy rate: 23.6

Las Vegas, Nevada
Home vacancy rate: 5.5
Rental vacancy rate: 13.5

Memphis, Tennessee
Home vacancy rate: 4.7
Rental vacancy rate: 16.1

Riverside-San Bernardino, California
Home vacancy rate: 6.4
Rental vacancy rate: 10.4

Dayton, Ohio
Home vacancy rate: 3.3
Rental vacancy rate: 26.4

Phoenix, Arizona
Home vacancy rate: 3.4
Rental vacancy rate: 15.5

Houston, Texas
Home vacancy rate: 2.6
Rental vacancy rate: 14.5

Jacksonville, Florida
Home vacancy rate: 3.1
Rental vacancy rate: 10.4

Tampa, Florida
Home vacancy rate: 3.7
Rental vacancy rate: 9.4

Detroit, Michigan
Home vacancy rate: 2.9
Rental vacancy rate: 15.6