It represents several billions of dollars worth of luxury real estate left vacant, and obscuring central park.

If you want to call that "nothing" then there is no reaching you.

No idea why you're being downvoted. This meme (rich people buying luxury condos, letting them sit vacant, and then profiting somehow) doesn't make any sense, and that article posted as evidence for it undermines it by depicting those units as being un-rentable due to oversupply in the market.

it makes total sense you park your money in an asset that will increase in value over time. you don't need to actively use it.

And in the meantime, they choose not to rent it why? The intuitive answer is: they're hard to rent, because there's way more luxury condos available to be rented than people who want to rent them, and it was a bad investment that the rich person will probably lose money on (if not in absolute dollars, then in comparison to some other property that is desirable to rent). But a lot of people in this thread seem to think it's intentional and rich people have some devious way of making more from a vacant condo than a rented one.

NYC has super low property tax. It's a win for no one

If I were faced with a situation where the taxes were sub-optimally low, then I would simply raise the taxes, instead of trying to remake the entire concept of private property.

Attracting billionaires is a win. Even if they’re just there for a couple weeks a year they’re providing a lot of prestige.

Prestige sounds like "paying in exposure" that artists keep hearing about.

I mean brands do that. Look at Redbull having a F-1 team (and other sports team).