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How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? How many luxury condos are being built and sit unoccupied? It seems like people always come out of the woo

How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? How many luxury condos are being built and sit unoccupied? It seems like people always come out of the woodwork to explain how rising wages aren’t helpful and are solution must always seem to involve paying for more things (this cases houses).

cscurmudgeon 5y ago
Why deny basic laws of supply and demand? Almost all economists agree low supply of homes is a factor. https://econofact.org/why-and-where-are-housing-prices-rising https://econofact.org/why-and-where-are-housing-prices-risin... https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/homes-for-sale-hit-record-low/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/homes-for-sale-hit-... https://www.barrons.com/articles/may-housing-starts-51623796605 https://www.barrons.com/articles/may-housing-starts-51623796... Supplies are hitting record lows. There will always be millions of temporarily vacant homes in a country the size of the US as people move in and out of homes. Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from?
- Epa095 5y ago
  >Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from? He did not say that though... He commented that many got built, but withouth any indication of why. You read it as him claiming that 'someone is asking them'. I read it as a reflection on the uneven distribution of wealth (which unions can help with).
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    Not directly, but look at the last sentence. > are solution must always seem to involve paying for more things (this cases houses)
closeparen 5y ago
Population isn’t static. We need housing supply to be responsive to changes in demographics and preferences. If the towns no one wanted to live in anymore were 100% occupied, that would be very bad! It would mean more people were stuck. If the cities people want to live in were 100% occupied, that would also be very bad! It would mean there’s no such thing as a move-in ready home to terminate your search. You’d only be able to move by swapping with someone, or else everyone in the connected component of moves would need to move on the same day (some cities actually used to do that). In general, vacancy is good for buyers and tenants; it gives them both liquidity and leverage over sellers and landlords.
kelnos 5y ago
It doesn't matter how many houses remain empty in the US as a whole. Presumably locations with high vacancy rates are places with low demand (ignoring, for the moment, places with large amounts of foreign real estate investors who parasitically decide to leave their properties empty). Raising wages in places where housing is in high demand, but short supply, will just serve to increase home prices further. That doesn't mean we shouldn't raise wages, it just means the real problem housing-wise is the lack of supply.
kuang_eleven 5y ago
> How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? About 16M units unoccupied [1]. > How many luxury condos are being built Quite a few! New construction is almost always targeted at the high-end, which has been true throughout history. Low-end housing, outside specific government projects, tend to be the high-end housing of the past > and sit unoccupied? Very, very few. The idea of luxury housing being built only to sit empty for some unspecified "investment" reason has been a persistent myth that has never been backed up by data. 1. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=DP04# https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=DP04#
- folkrav 5y ago
  So basically, what you're saying is there are millions of unoccupied units, which should be older, now lower-end units, but people still can't afford to buy them.

cscurmudgeon 5y ago

Why deny basic laws of supply and demand? Almost all economists agree low supply of homes is a factor. https://econofact.org/why-and-where-are-housing-prices-rising https://econofact.org/why-and-where-are-housing-prices-risin... https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/homes-for-sale-hit-record-low/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/homes-for-sale-hit-... https://www.barrons.com/articles/may-housing-starts-51623796605 https://www.barrons.com/articles/may-housing-starts-51623796... Supplies are hitting record lows. There will always be millions of temporarily vacant homes in a country the size of the US as people move in and out of homes. Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from?

Epa095 5y ago
>Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from? He did not say that though... He commented that many got built, but withouth any indication of why. You read it as him claiming that 'someone is asking them'. I read it as a reflection on the uneven distribution of wealth (which unions can help with).
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  Not directly, but look at the last sentence. > are solution must always seem to involve paying for more things (this cases houses)

closeparen 5y ago

Population isn’t static. We need housing supply to be responsive to changes in demographics and preferences. If the towns no one wanted to live in anymore were 100% occupied, that would be very bad! It would mean more people were stuck. If the cities people want to live in were 100% occupied, that would also be very bad! It would mean there’s no such thing as a move-in ready home to terminate your search. You’d only be able to move by swapping with someone, or else everyone in the connected component of moves would need to move on the same day (some cities actually used to do that). In general, vacancy is good for buyers and tenants; it gives them both liquidity and leverage over sellers and landlords.

kelnos 5y ago

It doesn't matter how many houses remain empty in the US as a whole. Presumably locations with high vacancy rates are places with low demand (ignoring, for the moment, places with large amounts of foreign real estate investors who parasitically decide to leave their properties empty). Raising wages in places where housing is in high demand, but short supply, will just serve to increase home prices further. That doesn't mean we shouldn't raise wages, it just means the real problem housing-wise is the lack of supply.

kuang_eleven 5y ago

> How many empty houses are there in the US, millions? About 16M units unoccupied [1]. > How many luxury condos are being built Quite a few! New construction is almost always targeted at the high-end, which has been true throughout history. Low-end housing, outside specific government projects, tend to be the high-end housing of the past > and sit unoccupied? Very, very few. The idea of luxury housing being built only to sit empty for some unspecified "investment" reason has been a persistent myth that has never been backed up by data. 1. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=DP04# https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=DP04#

folkrav 5y ago
So basically, what you're saying is there are millions of unoccupied units, which should be older, now lower-end units, but people still can't afford to buy them.