208 days ago
208 days ago
10. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma- While the city’s NBA team (the Thunder) is rolling, their housing market isn’t. The Thunder came a game away from reaching the NBA Finals in 2011 while the percent of vacant houses peaked at 5.2% (6th in the US). It seems like OKC just can’t make it to the number one spot in anything this year!
9. St. Louis, Missouri- The Greater St. Louis area lost more than 80,000 jobs in 2008 and 2009. When the jobs go, so does the housing market. Maybe if the city invested some of the money used to upkeep that ridiculous arc everyday to fix the unemployment crisis maybe we’d see a jump in the local economy.
8. Kansas City, Missouri- Thanks to Kansas City, Missouri is the only state with two of the top 10 cities in the worst housing market list; a notion causing local officials to negotiate the sell of Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas City, Kansas. Politicians on the Kansas side, however, have refused to accept any of the current offers.
7. Detroit, Michigan- Does this one really need an explanation?
6. Dayton, Ohio- Dayton is like Detroit Jr. Both used to be economic giants, key cities in the US auto-making industry and were quite pleasant places to live and raise a family. However, after the rest of the world learned to make better automobiles than the US, the cities fell into junk yard. Perhaps the only thing Dayton has over its big brother Detroit is a worse housing market. But don’t worry Detroit, you still rank higher than Dayton in murders, crime, drug abuse, prostitution, rape, ect…
5. Baton Rouge, Louisiana- Leave it to Louisiana to mess a good thing up. The state received hundreds of millions of dollars after Hurricane Katrina to rebuild lost neighborhoods. And what did the state do? Believe it or not, the politicians didn’t stuff their pockets enough! They actually built too many houses! Now, the capital of Louisiana has a home vacancy rate of nearly 4% and a rental vacancy rate of 13%.
4. Atlanta, Georgia- The city used to be seen as the star of the south, trumpeting over other cities in the neighborhood and attracting major international businesses like CNN and Coca Cola to set up world headquarters. But, just like the Falcons blew a perfect Super Bowl run in the 2010-2011 NFL season, so did the city with its robust economy. Atlanta’s unemployment rate hovers at just below 10%! Well above the nation’s already high average of 9.2%
3. Memphis, Tennessee- Memphis is definitely singing the blues. The murder rate is the highest it’s been in years, unemployment is well over 10% and the economy is squeaking by like a rusted harmonica. The only thing the city needs now is for its girlfriend to leave him. Wait a minute, Nashville just called and stated that those lyrics were too similar to a country hit and won’t allow her neighboring city to use the them in it’s depressing Blues cry.
2. Indianapolis, Indiana- Basically, resident’s of Indianapolis realized how boring the city was and left to live in much cooler places. Since the exodus, Indianapolis fell to #2 on the worst housing market scale.
1. Tucson, Arizona- This is a huge surprise because Tucson doesn’t rank #1 in anything! Hell, the city’s never even been in the top 10 of anything! But with the nation’s highest home vacancy rate of 16% and an unemployment rate of nearly 8%, Tucson just goes to show that if you try hard enough to reach the top, you will!
