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Weirdly, there is great evidence for the author's point, he just didn't mention it! In short, the vacancy rate is incredibly low, ~3.5% [1]. Taking the other da

Weirdly, there is great evidence for the author's point, he just didn't mention it! In short, the vacancy rate is incredibly low, ~3.5% [1]. Taking the other data the author mentioned, that means that ~1.5% is non-market vacancies, of which only a subset is the much-ballyhooed investment vacancies. [1] https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/data-profiles/ https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/da...

alisonatwork 6y ago
Although 3.5% might be small compared to the US or California average on that linked site, it still sounds like a lot to me. In a town with 10000 properties, that's 35 empty units. Even if only 15 weren't actively on the market, that could still get over a dozen homeless people off the streets, or provide a refuge for at risk members of the community who currently live with abusive parents or spouses due to not having the means to live alone. Obviously building more affordable properties is a longer term solution, but that doesn't mean that people who keep empty houses around aren't also part of the problem. Personally, I think there should be a "use it or lose it" tax on vacant properties. Edit: I realized after posting I'm off by an order of magnitude. It's 150-350 empty units! That would make a huge difference to homeless numbers almost anywhere.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  That doesn’t mean 350 units have been sitting empty since last spring. It means at some point each unit waited two weeks for cleaning, viewing, lease approval, and a new tenant moving in.
  - alisonatwork 6y ago
    This doesn't come across as convincing to me. This would require that in any given community of 10000 dwellings, literally every single unit is a rental property, and that every single unit is vacated and has a new tenant move in every year. That might be true in certain specific communities like university residences, but I very much doubt it's the case in any ordinary urban community. In the US home ownership numbers are around 65%[1] (not 0%), and people on average only move about 11 times in their life[2] (not once per year). It seems to me entirely reasonable to assume that in a community that touts its low vacancy rate of 3.5%, there must still be a not insignificant absolute number of properties that remain unoccupied for a month or more every year. If that number truly were near-zero, then nobody should have a problem with a vacancy tax, or a squatter's rule designed to grant rights to actual members of the community who want to use a property left vacant for longer than a couple of months. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S... [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-times-the-average-person-moves/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-times-the-aver...
    - erik_seaberg 6y ago
      A quick search says landlords expect to lose about half their tenants every year, and the places with housing shortages probably have more renters. If homeowners are included, they don’t move very often but it can take two months for a house to change hands.

alisonatwork 6y ago

Although 3.5% might be small compared to the US or California average on that linked site, it still sounds like a lot to me. In a town with 10000 properties, that's 35 empty units. Even if only 15 weren't actively on the market, that could still get over a dozen homeless people off the streets, or provide a refuge for at risk members of the community who currently live with abusive parents or spouses due to not having the means to live alone. Obviously building more affordable properties is a longer term solution, but that doesn't mean that people who keep empty houses around aren't also part of the problem. Personally, I think there should be a "use it or lose it" tax on vacant properties. Edit: I realized after posting I'm off by an order of magnitude. It's 150-350 empty units! That would make a huge difference to homeless numbers almost anywhere.

erik_seaberg 6y ago
That doesn’t mean 350 units have been sitting empty since last spring. It means at some point each unit waited two weeks for cleaning, viewing, lease approval, and a new tenant moving in.
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  This doesn't come across as convincing to me. This would require that in any given community of 10000 dwellings, literally every single unit is a rental property, and that every single unit is vacated and has a new tenant move in every year. That might be true in certain specific communities like university residences, but I very much doubt it's the case in any ordinary urban community. In the US home ownership numbers are around 65%[1] (not 0%), and people on average only move about 11 times in their life[2] (not once per year). It seems to me entirely reasonable to assume that in a community that touts its low vacancy rate of 3.5%, there must still be a not insignificant absolute number of properties that remain unoccupied for a month or more every year. If that number truly were near-zero, then nobody should have a problem with a vacancy tax, or a squatter's rule designed to grant rights to actual members of the community who want to use a property left vacant for longer than a couple of months. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S... [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-times-the-average-person-moves/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-times-the-aver...
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    A quick search says landlords expect to lose about half their tenants every year, and the places with housing shortages probably have more renters. If homeowners are included, they don’t move very often but it can take two months for a house to change hands.