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.
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.