At least where I live (Helsinki region in Finland), the main issue with empty apartments is not that they are bought as vehicles of speculation. It's that there

At least where I live (Helsinki region in Finland), the main issue with empty apartments is not that they are bought as vehicles of speculation. It's that there's not that much vacancy to speak of. The numbers are inflated in the discourse, often ignoring several factors: 1) in a rental market, there is a natural vacancy rate of a few percent due to people moving every few ears, and that 2) apartments that are in statistics "vacant" are not really vacant or empty; they are merely apartments where no person has a permanent address - there still may be people living there. Workers from elsewhere in the country who work in the city for the week but have their permanent address elsewhere with their family; undocumented migrants, etc. 3) apartments belong to elderly or sick people (cancer etc) who are in a care home or equivalent, but don't want to give up their home because they hope to be able to return, or to old people who clearly are not going to return but whose heirs cannot sell the apartment until the owner has passed away. If it were rented out, the care payments would increase with the amount of the rent income, and the only thing owners would get from renting out is risk of a bad tenant. Yes, no one is living in that apartment just now. Still, it's not primarily a "vehicle for speculation".