Many Towns Across NY Have Some of the Country's Smallest Yards

Having a big backyard can be a real benefit when it comes to extra privacy, more storage, or overall happiness. But having a small yard doesn't mean that you're not successful Congested and expensive areas, particularly in the Northeast, can lack space to begin with.

But just how small are backyards in cities and towns in New York state compared to other states?

Average Backyard Size in New York

Lawn Starter recenlty compared 2,000 of the biggest U.S. cities based on the average yard sizes of single-family homes from the Federal Housing Finance Agency According to their findings, only the top 150 cities in our ranking enjoy lawns larger than the national average of half an acre.

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According to Lawn Starter's study, Ithaca had the state's largest yards, and 88th in the country overall, 0.564 acreage (a little over half an acre). A number of other areas, including some Hudson VAlley towns, made the list, though no others made the top 100.

151. New City
170. Monsey
181. Huntington Station
182. Kiryas Joel
207. Medford
267. Dix Hills
273. Smithtown
288. Middletown
345. Newburgh
356. Poughkeepsie
385. Saratoga Springs
392. Auburn
403. Spring Valley
407. Rome
448. Harrison
473. Watertown
486, Ossining
625. Kingston
626. North Tonawanda
629. Centereach
639. Coram
647. Elmira
657. Commack
663. Shirley

29 Beautiful Backyard Birds of New York State

These are 29 of the most common birds found in New York.

Gallery Credit: Traci Taylor

How Many Vacant Homes Are There Across New York State?

New York has long had an issue with foreclosure, and recent skyrocketing prices have only increased the problem.

Notice a lot of empty homes in your neighborhood? This may be a bit hard to believe with the housing market so hot right now. But not all these homes are falling apart. Other factors, such as a house remaining on the market for an extended period, or its being used as a vacation home are other things to consider.

The Data

LendingTree used the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau to come up with the numbers. Places with higher vacancy rates are not always less expensive, as many of us know living here in New York. According to the study, Florida has the highest vacancy rate in the country at 1,680,844.

Empty House Across New York

According to LendingTree, New York state has 955,437 empty homes.

This makes it 4th in the nation for vacancies, only behind Florida, California, and Texas. However, if you look at New York's overall vacancy rate, which divides the number of vacant households by the total number of households in a state, the figures weren't quite as jarring. New York ranked 28th in the country, with a vacancy rate of 11.31%. The state has 7,488,719 currently occupied units, according to these figures.

The national average is around 11.66%, which places New York slightly below. Vermont had the highest rate at 22.86%.