Today, the Commerce department provided more evidence of a housing market saturated with over supply. Today’s data focused on the rental market and the number of empty houses.

• The vacancy rate for owner-occupied homes stands at a record 2.8 percent. A year ago, the vacancy rate was 2.1 percent.

• One rental home in ten is currently vacant, looking for tenants.

• Of 127.3 million housing units in the United States, 17.6 million were vacant at the end of the quarter, including 2.2 million vacant units that were for sale and 4 million for rent.

• Compared with a year ago, the housing stock increased by 1.9 million, with vacant units rising by 1.5 million and occupied units rising by 400,000.

In total, there are over 6.2 million homes either for sale or for rent. Moreover, existing home sales fell by a record 8.7 percent this month. Time to phone up the landlord. It is a good time to negotiate a lower rent.