Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents

Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by graemep on Thursday March 19, 2026 @07:30AM (#47437631)

There are some places in the UK (mostly new developments in London) that have a significant number of deliberately empty investment properties despite the law here making it easy to evict tenants. They are not being used for short term rentals either.

Although the easiest route (no-fault eviction) is being abolished soon, wanting to sell a property remains a valid reason to evict.

Some people just buy property as a speculative investment.

I do not think it is the main cause of shortages in London - that is people buying holiday homes, which are often large and centrally located. London provides a lot (restaurants, nightclubs, gambling, prostitution, financial services...) that attracts people with a lot of money to spend from all over the world.

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Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by zozbot234 on Thursday March 19, 2026 @07:46AM (#47437763)

> despite the law here making it easy to evict tenants

"Easy" is relative. "Evicting" an airbnb'er once the term is up will always be orders of magnitude easier than kicking out a long-term tenant who regards that as their actual home. There's not even anything necessarily wrong with this! The easiest way to address the issue is literally to slash any remaining red-tape that's making things difficult for those who would want to AirBnb these properties out, while managing the resulting side-effects (including the plausible effect on the long-term rentals market) by levying a special fee if necessary.

As a bonus, easy AirBnb rental provides an alternative for some who might otherwise want a permanent holiday home.

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Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by michaelmrose on Thursday March 19, 2026 @01:11PM (#47442637)

If we don't have an excess of housing why should we allow ANYONE even one single property to serve as an unlicensed hotel. If we tax un-lived in property extremely punitively nobody will hold them at all and it should soon be sold or rented out.

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Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by zozbot234 on Thursday March 19, 2026 @01:18PM (#47442728)

I'm fine with taxing both long-term vacant properties and AirBnb at fairly high rates, since both have negative effects on the surrounding neighborhood - the latter to a markedly less extent than the former, of course.

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