It’s no secret that the U.S. has been dealing with a major housing affordability crisis ever since the COVID-19 pandemic. While home prices have skyrocketed across the country—especially in those more rural areas that were once considered more affordable thanks to their distance from major employment centers and cities—one area is seeing a surprising trend when it comes to abandoned properties.
According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore, Maryland, is going through a bit of a housing boom when it comes to its blighted and forgotten residential homes.
The New York Post reports that this is doing wonders for the city’s inventory of vacancies, reducing the number of boarded-up homes and causing a historic drop in the amount of violent crime.
It seems like the revitalization is having a domino effect in communities as well, as once-languishing neighborhoods are once again full of life and activity, hopefully signaling a change for the city as a whole.
Affordability crisis fuels bidding wars for abandoned homes in beleaguered US city – reducing vacancies in a stunning reversal https://t.co/Oi36C19HiM pic.twitter.com/g947sVTF6d
— New York Post (@nypost) August 18, 2026
The City Has Seen Vacancies Drop by Nearly a Third
The New York Post reports that certain neighborhoods throughout Baltimore are seeing a major decline in boarded-up doors and windows as vacancies continue to decline. It looks like this is due to a combination of efforts, including billions of dollars in state funding and nonprofits who are working to rehab entire blocks of the city at a time.
This has made the already affordable city—according to Zillow.com, the median sales price in the city is $231,667 as of June 30, 2026, as opposed to $381,333 across the U.S.—even more appealing to those looking to make a move. And the ripples of this affordability are visible to residents, as the city’s number of vacancies has dropped from 16,000 to less than 12,000.
“Vacant housing was everywhere,” Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, told the Wall Street Journal. “When people see a bunch of vacants, no one wants to live there. No one wants to invest there.” However, not every neighborhood has been part of the revitalization. The New York Post notes that Carrollton Ridge now has even more vacancies than it did a decade ago.
How to Find a Home in Baltimore
According to Homes.com, there are several things you should look for when considering a flipped house, including checking the quality of the materials that were used, how the bathrooms and kitchens were handled (especially when it comes to plumbing), and whether the appliances appear to be adequately installed and running correctly.
Of course, there’s so much more to consider than just those three things, which is why you should also hire a licensed home inspector to look at any property you want to purchase, whether you think it has potentially been flipped or not.