What does this measure?

The percentage of residential housing units that are unoccupied or vacant.

Why is this important?

A high rate of vacancies can indicate that an area is blighted or in decline, but it can also indicate a high number of vacation or seasonal homes, or an area with a lot of new construction where new owners have not yet moved in.

How is our county performing?

In 2015-19, 7% of residential housing units in Berks County were vacant, or about 12,400 of 167,100 units. This was less than Pennsylvania (11%) and the nation (12%). Berks County's vacancy rate was fairly stable from 2000 to 2015-19, while there were slight increases at the state (2 percentage points) and national (3 percentage points) levels. The Central region of the county had the highest vacancy rate, at 12%, while other regions had 7% or less. In the City of Reading, 14% of housing units were vacant, up 2 percentage points from 2000.

Among neighboring counties, Schuylkill had the highest percentage of vacancies (16%). Others were lower than Berks, including Chester, Lancaster, Lehigh and Montgomery (all at 4-5%) and 7% in Lebanon. Schuylkill's vacancy rate was up 5 percentage points from 2000.

Notes about the data

For additional detail as to how the Berks County regions are defined and which boroughs and townships are included in each, see the About Us page.

There may be additional research available on this topic. Click on Reports and Resources to learn more.

Multiyear figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The bureau combined five years of responses to the survey to provide estimates for smaller geographic areas and increase the precision of its estimates. The survey provides data on characteristics of the population that used to be collected only during the decennial census.