US Counties With the Lowest Vacancy Rates
3,203 US counties ranked by vacancy rate, from lowest to highest. First are Somerset County, NJ (2.54%), Scott County, MN (2.6%) and Kendall County, IL (2.73%). The middle one of the 3,203 has 15.1%.
What this measures
The percentage of all homes and apartments that nobody lives in. The middle county is 15%, which surprises people. It counts vacation and seasonal homes, so the top of the list is resort and outdoor-recreation areas, such as Daggett County, Utah at 77%, not abandoned towns. A high number can tell two very different stories, and this measure cannot tell them apart. Source: Census ACS 5-year.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington | 7.42% |
| 2 | Oregon | 7.46% |
| 3 | Connecticut | 7.54% |
| 4 | California | 7.55% |
| 5 | New Jersey | 7.88% |
| 6 | Nebraska | 8.03% |
| 7 | Maryland | 8.09% |
| 8 | Illinois | 8.11% |
| 9 | Utah | 8.23% |
| 10 | Massachusetts | 8.38% |
| 11 | Ohio | 8.38% |
| 12 | Colorado | 8.63% |
| 13 | Iowa | 8.65% |
| 14 | Virginia | 8.99% |
| 15 | Indiana | 9.2% |
| 16 | Minnesota | 9.39% |
| 17 | Pennsylvania | 9.42% |
| 18 | Nevada | 9.48% |
| 19 | Texas | 9.62% |
| 20 | Kansas | 9.69% |
| 21 | District of Columbia | 9.7% |
| 22 | Rhode Island | 9.85% |
| 23 | New York | 10.2% |
| 24 | Tennessee | 10.6% |
| 25 | Georgia | 10.6% |
| 26 | Idaho | 10.7% |
| 27 | Kentucky | 10.9% |
| 28 | South Dakota | 10.9% |
| 29 | Arizona | 11% |
| 30 | Wisconsin | 11.1% |
| 31 | Missouri | 11.6% |
| 32 | Michigan | 12.2% |
| 33 | Oklahoma | 12.5% |
| 34 | North Carolina | 13% |
| 35 | New Mexico | 13.1% |
| 36 | North Dakota | 13.3% |
| 37 | Wyoming | 13.4% |
| 38 | Montana | 13.4% |
| 39 | Hawaii | 13.4% |
| 40 | Delaware | 13.5% |
| 41 | South Carolina | 13.8% |
| 42 | Arkansas | 14% |
| 43 | New Hampshire | 14.4% |
| 44 | Louisiana | 14.8% |
| 45 | Alabama | 15% |
| 46 | Mississippi | 15.1% |
| 47 | Florida | 15.2% |
| 48 | West Virginia | 16.1% |
| 49 | Alaska | 18.2% |
| 50 | Vermont | 20.1% |
| 51 | Maine | 21.1% |
| 52 | Puerto Rico | 21.3% |
More on vacancy rate
- US Counties With the Highest Vacancy Rates
- Vacancy rate by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.