Today was cold in the Twin Cites, with highs in St. Paul at 4 degrees Farenheit and lows down to -14!

I looked at 9 houses today, 7 of them were vacant with no heat operating. By mid morning we where walking into the cold, as outside temperatures rose while the unopened houses still held their low temperatures from overnight. It makes you appreciate the heck out of your car’s heater. Seeing so many vacant houses got me wondering what kind of trickle down effect this has. What about the utility companies who service these homes and have based their projections on the idea that these houses would continue to require service. Is there a point where this has a noticeable impact on service providers including gas, electric, garbage collection, phone, internet, and pay TV?

There is little doubt that there is an impact to the tax base both in the loss of a tax paying property and in the costs incurred by the community to deal with these vacancies. A study by the Homeownership Preservation Foundation estimates the cost to tax payers to be as high as $30,000 per property!

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