Or, one can always count long term vacancies, and be done with the subtleties of not-actually-vacant homes...
For example in Toronto based on official statistics rental vacancy is 1.2%. 2011 census provides the rest of the required data: there were 1,112,929 private dwellings in Toronto out of which 476,085 were rentals. 1.2% of that is 5,713 units, out of 100,000 estimated vacant.
Imagine what difference on a rental market increasing available vacancies 15 or 20 times would make..
Generally most of the local governments in the data sets used only consider homes vacant if it's not considered someone's primary address. It's normal to have some vacancies (especially in a global city), but usually not that many. To contrast what a normal-ish number is, Paris has half as many vacant units as all of England. New York City has more than all of England.
A large part of New York City's vacancies has to do with the last real estate crash there. I literally know people that can't remember where their place in New York City is, because they purchased it 15 years ago and didn't want to lose money. Now it just sits as a line item in their assets.
Note: I wrote the article, so I'm bias in defense here.
https://www.prosper.org.au/2015/12/09/speculative-vacancies-...
You'd figure that in such a situation, the landlords are immensely incentivized to sell, or to lower rents, which may continue to be very unwelcome to them...
...but if the point is that real estate speculation is the problem, wouldn't the looming possibility of that situation result in less speculation, or very careful speculation?
On the other hand, that would hit less wealthy landlords harder (larger percent of their wealth), encouraging them to sell, possibly simply driving more ownership to landlords with deep enough pockets to stomach the (temporary) losses?
Complicated!
Except the numbers showed vacancy rates at similar levels in expensive, "investment friendly" boroughs like Kensington and Chelsea compared to boroughs where large portions of the rental market is social housing where the council gets tenants in ASAP after cleanup/refurbishment.
I'm sure there are areas with problems, but many pleases it seems to me that the problem is more one of flawed assumptions. E.g. articles about the situation in London have more than once talked about dark streets and no children out playing.
But if there is one thing that has always been different between rich and poor areas, it is density and likelihood that the occupants will be spending money on activities away from home vs. playing around the block. I remember that distinction well even from growing up in Norway with class distinction far flatter than anywhere in London - the "normal" working class neighbourhoods I grew up in were lit and surrounded by kids playing outdoors in the evenings, while e.g. when I went to visit my grandparents in one of the wealthier parts of town, it was always darker - the flats in their building all had two living rooms and a couple of bedrooms with windows facing the road, and more rooms facing the inner courtyard. Even when people were home at night, there would be far less lit windows for the simple reason there were not enough people there to use all the rooms at once.
It seemed to me like people had started from a flawed feeling, and gotten hold of the statistics and asked no critical questions whatsoever about why the numbers where similar in the poorer areas and similar for social housing.
It's appealing story because it "explains" the high house prices people have to deal with by blaming it on some undefined evil absentee investor which won't show up to defend themselves.
I'll note that I've not looked at the issues related to Paris etc.; maybe it's different there and they have a genuine issue, but even if these numbers were abnormally high, "solving" that problem would not in any case be enough to drive the house prices down to affordable levels - no matter what it's clear that if governments want these prices down to affordable levels, they either have to resort to regulation or to stimulate housebuilding, whether by easing regulations or pouring money into it. But it's much easier to blame people for leaving properties empty.
Neighbourhoods I grew up in were
lit and ...
* . * . * .
> And if you look at what gets build now in London (e.g. Nine Elms, or Docklands) it's not large luxury flats, it's almost exclusively studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms, i.e. targeting the lowest end of the market.
This is another trap people go into, though: London is far more than the central areas. Go further out, and things are still closer to "normal".
things are still closer to "normal".
The proportion of empty properties does not vary much across London as far as I know. Certainly not enough to be noticeable.
I doubt Croydon currently has enough glamour to attract the super rich to park their money with empty mansions.
I imagine that the main reason for property to be empty in Croydon is that it can't be sold/rented at the target price level.
But Croydon actually has some of the most expensive areas of the UK. When people think of Croydon, they often think only of Croydon town centre, but that's a tiny part of the borough. It doesn't have the 10+ million flats you might find a handful of in Kensington etc., but it does have lots of multi-million properties, in numbers big enough that those are significant for these stats.
E.g. here's an example of the type of things you might find in Purley, which is part of Croydon [1], [2]. In Shirley (also Croydon) you're more likely to find properties around the million mark, but you do have roads where the average is around 1.5-2.5 million.
In terms of empty properties, there's minimal difference between those areas, or the luxury flats near the station, or the middle class areas, or the couple of run down council estates.
[1] http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/41807624?search_ide...
[2] http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/33270402?search_ide...
They are parking money. Property value in London is on the rise although it might not be so forever due to increasing property taxes. Same with Paris, Oslo etc.
French legislation also favorizes the tennants, so the owners would rather keep these places empty than even bother renting. Now the city council is coming up with a tax for a problem created through regulation. Which only proves that career politicians do not even understand the economics behind these issues.
If a unit is vacant for one month per year that would be an 8.3% vacancy rate. Certainly not all units turn over every year, particularly owner-occupied, but it's something to calibrate from. Another data point: the US nationwide average vacancy rate is 6.8%. I realize these are crowded cities and thus not entirely average, but that still gives us some baseline.
The cities in the article have anywhere from 1.71% to 9% vacancy rates. 1.71% is actually a very tight market by most standards I've heard of - equivalent to 6 days of vacancy per year per unit. 9% is rather high vacancy, particularly in an expensive market, but not completely out of line.
It seems like they may be overstating their case here.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_rental_vacancy_rate