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A lot of real estate commercial or residential is left vacant in many cities around the world because of this. Add to the fact that property taxes are directly

A lot of real estate commercial or residential is left vacant in many cities around the world because of this. Add to the fact that property taxes are directly tied to the tax income of city governments there are few cities willing to do something about it. Even the banks don't want to touch it as if the market crashes they will also get over leveraged. Now we have a large amount of empty and unused real estate and large number of unable to afford rent on houses or businesses.

bruce511 2y ago
This is undoubtedly correct for commercial, but I think not so much for residential. Partly because only investors care about rental returns (people buying houses to live in won't be getting rent.) And partly because residential rent demand remains strong, even as commercial rent is weaker. Where there might be cross-over is less with houses and more with large apartment blocks with a single owner. In that specific case it's probably better to keep rent high, especially if the building wants to maintain an aura of exclusivity. For housing generally there's no need to refinance every 5 years so the need to revalue doesn't come up. And unless a revalue happened soon after a purchase the house is unlikely to be underwater anyway. Residential prices (excluding large scale external events like 2008) are not volatile and trend steadily upwards. Ultimately the root fundamentals of commercial and residential real estate are quite different.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- neom 2y ago
  There are ghost floors in condo buildings in Toronto. Like really. I've seen it, a whole floor. Family office would fly to Canada, buy floors of buildings, leave. The government finally banned this, but the empty units still exist.
  - bboygravity 2y ago
    For the lesser informed: family office is like a hedge fund but with less regulation.
  - xbmcuser 2y ago
    Its not just family offices. Billions of dollars from proceeds of corruption and crime from developing world and poor countries is parked in the real estate of western cities. But western governments turn a blind eye as this allows their 3 letter agencies to control corrupt foreign officials.

bruce511 2y ago

This is undoubtedly correct for commercial, but I think not so much for residential. Partly because only investors care about rental returns (people buying houses to live in won't be getting rent.) And partly because residential rent demand remains strong, even as commercial rent is weaker. Where there might be cross-over is less with houses and more with large apartment blocks with a single owner. In that specific case it's probably better to keep rent high, especially if the building wants to maintain an aura of exclusivity. For housing generally there's no need to refinance every 5 years so the need to revalue doesn't come up. And unless a revalue happened soon after a purchase the house is unlikely to be underwater anyway. Residential prices (excluding large scale external events like 2008) are not volatile and trend steadily upwards. Ultimately the root fundamentals of commercial and residential real estate are quite different.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
neom 2y ago
There are ghost floors in condo buildings in Toronto. Like really. I've seen it, a whole floor. Family office would fly to Canada, buy floors of buildings, leave. The government finally banned this, but the empty units still exist.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  For the lesser informed: family office is like a hedge fund but with less regulation.
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  Its not just family offices. Billions of dollars from proceeds of corruption and crime from developing world and poor countries is parked in the real estate of western cities. But western governments turn a blind eye as this allows their 3 letter agencies to control corrupt foreign officials.