Nassau's low housing vacancy rate
Credit: Newsday / Karthika Namboothiri
Nassau County has consistently had one of the state’s lowest housing vacancy rates in the last decade, which indicates a persistently tight market on Long Island, where finding a home to rent or buy is infamously difficult.
Vacancy rate is a term used to measure the number of housing units that are livable but unoccupied relative to the total number of housing units available in a neighborhood. A high vacancy rate implies low demand in the housing market, while a starkly low rate indicates there aren’t enough homes to meet demand. The data does not differentiate between rental and homeowner vacancy rates.
In 2023, Nassau’s vacancy rate was 4.5%, only slightly above the Bronx’s 4.2%, which was the lowest in the state, according to The Point’s analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. This was below the national average of 7.7% and the New York State average of 5.5%.
The last decade has seen an even steeper decline in vacancies in Nassau. The vacancy rate was about 5.4% and 5.5% in 2019 and 2014, respectively. The region’s proximity to New York City and decades of lagging construction rates have contributed to skyrocketing rents and inflated home values. In an ideal world, new construction would increase supply to meet the demands of a growing population. Instead, mostly younger homebuyers are being forced to move out of Long Island while the region’s population growth stagnates.
Suffolk’s vacancy rate is more difficult to capture. The data includes housing units considered to be vacation or second homes, giving the county, which has a high number of seasonal "vacant" rental homes, a higher-than-average vacancy rate of 11.6%. Due to the seasonal market, that figure does not reflect the reality of Suffolk’s tight market. According to 2023 data, an estimated 44,000 housing units in Suffolk, or 65% of all vacant units, were listed as being for seasonal or recreational purposes. In comparison, around 4,000 units in Nassau, or 5% of its total vacant homes, were seasonal rentals.
