chandigarh where a common mans dream of owning housing in chandigarh may have been long shattered by the skyrocketing real estate prices a large number of houses are lying locked or vacant despite this the overall housing shortage is lowest in the country pegged at 01 according to report of the technical group ministry of housing and poverty alleviation on estimation of urban housing shortage number of unoccupied houses in the city is highest in a group of seven states and uts a number of houses in northern sectors are unoccupied as the owners have either shifted to live with their children abroad or belong to affluent families nobody wants to sell these buildings said kamaldeep randhawa a property consultant in sector 54 shortage of housing is calculated on the basis of the number of households available housing stock acceptable housing stock and overcrowdingcongestion in the existing dwelling units