Puebla ranks as the fourth state in the country with the most vacant homes, with 315,000 units, surpassed only by the State of Mexico, with 611,000; Veracruz, with 474,000; and Jalisco, with 451,000; according to the study “Housing in Mexico, 1990-2020,” included in the analysis “The Demographic Situation of Mexico 2025,” prepared by the National Population Council (Conapo).
These states, along with Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, and Oaxaca, account for half of all vacant homes in the country, revealing an accumulation of empty houses in a few areas while the housing shortage persists.
Based on the 2020 Population and Housing Census conducted by INEGI (the National Population Council), CONAPO (the National Population Council) defines an unoccupied dwelling as a fully constructed and available private property that, at the time of the census, has no permanent residents, is not for temporary use, and is not used as a business premises.
A dwelling for temporary use is a fully constructed and available private dwelling used only for vacations, rest, or living for a few days, weeks, or months, without permanent residents or economic activity. From the perspective of this study, both categories comprise underoccupied housing, understood as housing that could be inhabited but where no one lives permanently.
Nationwide, the problem of underoccupied housing has intensified. Unoccupied dwellings increased from 4.3 million in 2005 to 6.1 million in 2020, while those for temporary use rose from 1.4 million to 2.5 million during the same period. Overall, underoccupancy totaled 8.7 million homes in 2020.
In this context, vacant housing in Puebla stands out not only for its statewide volume but also for the prominence of its capital city on the national map. Conapo (National Population Council) counts 186 municipalities in Mexico with more than 10,000 underoccupied homes and 19 that exceed 50,000. Puebla City is part of this latter group with 92,000, second only to Acapulco, which tops the list with 107,000.
Other municipalities include Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, with 92,000; Morelia, with 82,000; Veracruz, with 78,000; Juárez, with 71,000; León, with 71,000; Zapopan, with 69,000; Mérida, with 68,000; Reynosa, with 59,000; Tijuana, with 59,000; and Culiacán, with 59,000. among others.
Furthermore, there are 140 municipalities where at least half of the housing stock is underutilized; the vast majority are small municipalities, 94 of them in Oaxaca, 14 in Puebla, and 11 in Nuevo León, demonstrating the extent of the problem in rural and mountainous regions. This data confirms that vacant housing in Puebla and other states is not a phenomenon exclusive to large cities, but also affects municipalities with high levels of marginalization and limited services.
According to CONAPO (National Population Council), the areas with the highest rates of underutilized housing are clustered in northwestern Oaxaca and southern Puebla, the mountainous and canyon region of southwestern Zacatecas, northern Jalisco and eastern Nayarit, as well as in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora, much of Nuevo León, and the northern borders with Coahuila and Tamaulipas. In these areas, the underutilization of the housing stock coexists with a lack of infrastructure, services, and job opportunities, exacerbating territorial inequalities.
The study warns that this underutilization “reiterates the inequality in access to housing in our country,” demonstrating that a significant portion of the housing stock remains vacant or is used only temporarily, while lower-income households are relegated to the urban periphery or to areas without services.
Source: lajornadadeoriente
