You're talking about wildly different situations. If the owners wanted to lease the place for a fair price, it would never be empty long enough to be squatted.

You're talking about wildly different situations. If the owners wanted to lease the place for a fair price, it would never be empty long enough to be squatted. Most squatters are actually looking to rent a place but can't afford it because of bloodsucking landowners letting apartments to rot empty to drive the prices up by creating artificial scarcity in the housing market. As for finding new speculators to buy the place, that's also complicated. I mean, mostly because selling an occupied place will drive its value down and certain shark-like speculators specialize in buying occupied homes for pennies to make a huge margin. But there are other factors. But more than anything, squatters are people. People who need a home. They can be discussed/reasoned/bargained with. In the worst case, a civil suit will get them evicted after some time even if they'd not like to move out.