Homeownership Rate Plummets and NYT and Post Don't Notice

Every quarter the Census Bureau puts out data on vacancy rates and homeownership. For some reason, this release is almost always ignored.

This is unfortunate because it often contains very useful information on the housing market. One of the reasons that I could be so sure that we were seeing a bubble when house prices started diverging sharply from historic trends was that the vacancy rate was reaching record levels as early as 2002. As we learn in advanced economics, excess supply is suppos...