U.S. Home Vacancies Hit 18.7 Million; What's the Real Story?

These are the kind of factors that are not readily apparent when one looks at the headlines such as "Home Vacancies Hit 18.7 Million on Bank Seizures" and then sees a dip in vacancies.

The real story is things are much worse than they look in many ways, even if one could figure out how to subtract vacant "unlivable worthless" homes from the totals.