“I dance like people wish they weren't watching.” Someone sure is watching, and counting, empty houses. Lack of available housing inventory has helped keep housing costs high throughout many of the nation’s big cities, but nearly 5.5 million homes sit vacant across the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas. The average vacancy rate across these 50 metros is 7.22 percent, with New Orleans (13.9 percent), Miami (12.7 percent), and Tampa (12.2 percent) having the highest vacancy rates. Vacancy rates are lowest in Minneapolis, Austin, and Washington, D.C., the only metros in the study with vacancy rates below 5 percent. Just because an area has a high vacancy rate doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with its housing market. Roughly one-quarter of vacancies are due to being empty for rent, one-fifth because they're only used part time, and one-twelfth because they're being repaired or renovated. (Today