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The country's two most vacant cities are in Michigan

A foreclosure sign.
Steve Carmody
/
Michigan Radio

A new reportfrom Realty Trac says Flint is the most vacant city in the nation, and Detroit isn't far behind.

According to the report, 7.5 percent of homes in Flint are vacant. Detroit comes in second at 5.3 percent.

"[In Flint], we're talking about basically 1 in 14 properties in the city that are vacant," said Realty Trac vice president Daren Blomquist. "That's going to affect the neighborhoods and even the entire city in terms of home values and home prices."

While it's not surprising that supply in Flint and Detroit outweighs demand right now, Blomquist says most other places in the US have the opposite problem.

"[In other places] there's low inventory of homes and sellers have the upper hand. In markets like Flint and Detroit, where we have these sky high vacancy rates, the formula is flipped," he said.

In better news, Blomquist says Detroit's vacancy rates have dropped slightly since last September.

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