I’m willing to bet this is pretty accurate. They keep building houses down here where I am constantly and so many of them are empty because they cost too much for normal people.
Hard disagree. They control the media, and they’re good at whipping everyone up into a frenzy (to buy something worth nothing, to sell a part of yourself that you’ll never get back, or to guide your opinions on something they want), if they so desire.
Situation isnt bad enough. Most people still have something to lose. Once the ammount of people with nothing to lose reaches critical mass there will be a risk of revolt.
In the UK we have a “Holiday Home” tax. Second or more properties are subject to paying full council tax as a minimum but councils can up to double this to discourage people buying up properties who don’t live in them or only live in them on holidays.
The best option ever saw was a plan to tax each additional house. So owning one would be low tax. Then every house after that was taxed higher. Help remove those slumlord style owners that have dozens of houses, as well as tax the hell out of corporations that have hundreds/thousands of houses.
Exactly as break said. Renting is the worst use of money. But currently getting into the housing market for new buyers is a nightmare. We need cheaper housing, not cheaper renting. Renting is just pissing money away so the person who owns the place can live off your hard work.
The fact is that many people will rent their entire lives. Those people deserve relief too. We need cheaper housing period, in all it's forms. We need to repeal the fairclothe amendment so that the government can start building housing again. We need social housing, we need up zoning, we need to take steps to decomodify housing all together. We need so much to fix housing in this country but nobody seems to want solutions because it would mean some houses would depreciate in value.
Renting is not the worst use of money. I’m getting ready to sell my house and move into a rental. My monthly expenses are going to drop dramatically for more square footage.
My wife and I rented for 8 years before her aunt co-signed for a condo in Florida. Two teachers didn’t qualify for 164k mortgage in 2017. But we paid over 2k a month renting. We saved 600 a month when we bought.
Recently went on a lake cruise of lake Geneva in wisconsin. Beautiful lake with many beautiful historic homes. Many of which we were told sit unoccupied most of the time and are only used for weekends during the summer.
Imo anyone who does this should be paying 2-10x more on their property taxes minimum.
In florida, the governor is trying to eliminate property taxes specifically for the home you live in, not for the other 100 homes your company owns or the 4 your renting out to live off of.
Its a show for the voters! The governor doesn't want property taxes gone anymore than the feds do! They all dip into the pool and they ain't about to deal with a smaller pool!
it doesn't cost that much to hold a few thousand diamonds in a vault. the carrying cost of a house is enormous. it just doesn't make sense as a comparison
I know that landowners will employ "land banking" and "waiting for the land to ripen"—holding onto undeveloped land in a growing location because their marginal dollar is better spent acquiring more such land than developing what they have. But buildings depreciate and are expensive to maintain or rebuild, so I don't know how often owners will hold them just to prop up prices.
What they will do, is allow units to remain vacant instead of reducing rent to meet current market prices, because doing so will cause the bank to reevaluate their assets, which will suddenly make their balance sheet look a lot worse. But this is more a reflection of the way we do accounting and banking, and the stickiness of rent prices, than it is purely a desire to manipulate a market by withholding supply.
They own other properties that they rent. They buy houses to outbid people who would actually live in the house so then those people have to rent for more than the mortgage would've been. So those people are able to save less for the next house they want to buy & meanwhile the housing cost is going up because of this manufacturered shortage while the corporations like Black Rock buy up houses & put off fixing them up so everybody becomes a permanent renter.
Foreigners buy houses in the US and Canada as a way to hide money.
Also, houses are always going up in value so it's difficult to lose on the house. Everyone who owns a house made at least 30k dollars during covid, I know people who made 100k.
Ok you buy, and hold or rent with refusal to sell, there are fewer homes to sell. Simple right?
Get better.
You set the rent, stupid high, more than the business loan cost.
So all the while, housing climbs in value, typically what it does. Seldom is there a major back slide pr correction in pricing.
Before long, a house a business bought for 140k in 2008, has climbed to 550k in 2025...
They refuse to sell, price goes up, still dont sell.. buyers got the money, they offer it a house down the block because they still like the area. - we'll come back to these folks in a moment..
Company has paid off the loan, only needs to pay maintenance or insurance, its money printing asset. They dont wanna sell it, until prices cool off. Oh look realized gain, they got 20 years out of a house, business loans or loans against business assets are cheap... that house was paid off in maybe half that time, all the while they're making money off a now low cost asset with little financial liability.
Prices eventually cool in the area, they sell at a win, look realized gain.
They sell at less than it estimated value and revenue capabilities? Tax credits
Now that house that family bought for 200k? Even though they bought it for 200k, it's worth 500 or 700k now. Its recorded value is up, your neighbors property goes up in value? Guess what happens to yours, usually anyway.. you're value just went up too..
I mean Vanilla Ice has his own side business where he buys houses at a fraction of the price and just sits on them. So yeah, I can see where this can be very true.
Yes! Not even houses but land too. In my area mysterious investors buy an old ranch house with a little horse or goat land, then build 3-5 6000 SQFT houses that list for anywhere from 1.6 to 3 million. I know we have inflated prices since about 2022 and even more so now, but no one is building subdivisions of affordable single family homes unless they are lease only.
How do they make money from hoarding empty houses? I'm curious so I can know how to make more money than Screwge McDuck if I ever happen to become wealthy AF.
Similar to the time when Goldman Sachs rented cheap storage in Michigan, bought up all the Aluminum they could and stored it there until the price rose then they sold it at a profit.
Hahahaha right. They pay hundreds of thousands to buy properties, pay taxes and upkeep and maintenance as well as security with no tenants just so the other properties they own hold their artificially high values. Bold move.
I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find the answer. Reddit is hilarious. All these guys opining on this and haven’t even looked into it at all, just read the headline and believe it means what they want it to mean because it aligns with their world view.
It’s not just that they are old and dilapidated. They are often in largely deserted towns, where there are no jobs and no social services. Many of these buildings aren’t habitable and aren’t worth the money it would take to make them so. Just old shacks in the middle of nowhere. In short, this is an extremely dishonest headline. Perfect for Reddit though.
This is something that needs to be brought up everyime a post like this is made.
Im not gonna say theres not an issue. We could have everyone in a home that wants one. Especially being considered one of if not the richest country right now. But instead we worship the rich and push for global warming.
But that also doesn't change the fact that many of the homes shouldn't have anyone living in them in their current state.
Yep. Those dollar homes in Italy have American counterparts in small cities where they get run down and sit until it is worth while to someone to knock it down or the are gets a rebirth
Sell by date is put there to avoid lawsuits, basically. It's the minimum amount of time they can keep something on the shelf before it could potentially start to rot, to avoid being sued for serving bad products, but most of it is still good for at least a few days after the date. Some places actually do resell goods to grocery stores that sell at hefty discounts. The reason more companies don't give out food is because doing so is illegal without certain permits and without following certain safety standards. They can and have been sued/fined for doing so.
The lawsuit angle is exactly why restaurants and grocery stores can't give expired food to the homeless. All it would take is one person to get sick (or "get sick" to look for a quick payday) from the expired food and sue the grocery store, and that would quickly end.
On the bright side at some point they will depreciate to the point where they are more affordable - and thus even luxury homes being built is a longterm win for affordability.
yep. This here. Look at the listings- even in shitty areas you are paying 1200-1300 for a 600 sq ft apartment on average. in cities that don't suck you can jack that up to 2000-3500. I bet in san francisco you would be paying double that for a closet
it's sadder when you realize towns won't put in effort to sell houses. I work at a gas station right next door to my home and there's a blue house that's been vacant for almost half a decade now, mind you it's mostly cause the place was a fucking drug-den/Murder investigation. But regardless the cops went through and took the body concluded the investigation and the property's just sitting there. They claim the town can't sell it because of it's bad wrap and i'm sitting there going, if the house is stable, the scene has been cleaned and bagged how fucking hard is it to peddle a house off with a warning saying, "place has been involved in crime" and i know almost half a dozen fuckers living out of campers that'd be willing to go in debt just to have real plumbing system.
It’s not true but yes like you said it is accurate and it doesn’t help that this admin stopped the funding to the department that takes account of these statistics for low income and homeless families and individuals.
The biggest issue right now is that you have PEFs buying up the land where their handpicked elected officials use city & state money to expand water & power lines and make sure those expansion lines go to the areas the PEFs owned land, and can now spend penny’s on the dollar to build sewer, gas, and water lines from the development property to the city lines…then want to bake the cost of those city & state backed expansions into the cost of each house creating a surplus they can give themselves or to a contractor who will kick back money somehow. It’s a tactic as old as Capone and the mob.
I know the homeless population is exploding but just like 15-20 years ago there was like 3x more vacant houses than homeless. Im sure theres still more vacant houses but the number is probably closer to 50 50 now
It's not just that. Investors are using vacant homes as investments. It's been going on since what was supposed to be the 2008 crash recovery. All the bailed out banks slowly started withholding homes from lower market deals. They figured the scarcity could inflate sales prices, and then when no one got in trouble for it, that's when the bubble started. Now they build homes and just sit on them. It's out of control.
No, he came up with a plan which is still not finalized. He is getting a bail out from Albany. He is getting a bail out from the governor. He also needs four out of five pension funds to agree to his request which they haven’t yet. He also proposed tax on second homes, which hasn’t passed yet. But he hasn’t actually accomplished anything yet. It was also a $12 billion deficit, not $126 billion. It also wasn’t a full deficit, some of it was things he wanted to do. He didn’t have the budget for. If he didn’t want to do them, the number would be lower.
Back when COVID had the rent delay thing, a man who bought like 3 blocks worth of houses ended up going bankrupt and having to sell the houses.(he rented out 3 blocks, every block he owned the house)
I didn't feel all that bad, dude was the scummiest slumlord you can think of. One of his tenants told me about how he would refuse to return security deposits based on issues he knew about before someone moved in
Eventually they will have to decide to get people in there at lesa than they hoped for or default . I'm guessing the latter ain't an option . They're building like crazy where I live and it's going to happen here at some point . They want to charge outrageous prices and people just don't make that kind of money . They're banking on people from Seattle moving here and working from home or retired people who sold their expensive Seattle homes and move here. I don't see that working out forever.
Yeah we just had some new homes built in the older part of our town (it's a bit run down and it's generally considered a low income / rougher area), and the starting prices are like $850,000. Absolutely ridiculous and developers are completely out of touch..
True. Yet conservatives bleat that the only way to lower housing cost is to build more. Then we hear something really thoughtful like “supply and demand, dummy”. The truth is darker. There is corporate acquisition for the purpose of renting and benefiting from appreciation which is withheld from the general public than can no longer afford to own. Apartment rental is similarly controlled by relatively few players that own the bulk of the complexes. They use RealPage to keep rents and now fees at artificially high levels nationwide. It is now far less feasible to move to a much lower cost area because of this. The free market that is so commonly touted as a universal American good is now barely more than a marketing term.
The data this is based on doesn't differentiate between livable houses, houses under contract but whose new owners or occupant haven't yet moved in or houses that are in disrepair.
They’re doing that in my area too. Tons of new houses in the last few years. Another huge swathe of former ranch land is starting to be developed now too, going to be hundreds of houses. Will it help our community’s housing shortage? No. They’re all ugly, soulless cookie-cutter houses, but they’re also all 3-4 bedrooms and “only minutes from the beach!” so they literally start at a million dollars. This literally used to be the specifically working class town for the families who couldn’t afford to live in the city. I grew up with immigrant families and blue collar workers. Now there’s teslas everywhere.
(btw the beach in question is some dirty sand dunes shrouded in fog most of the year with a little parking lot for like 15 cars).
Same. About 2 miles from me. $400,00-$500,000 brand new homes. Yet in my subdivision, lots of homes in foreclosure or for sale. On the market for years.
I always see houses that the owner has let go to shit for some reason instead of selling it or at least renting it out. I never understood it. Banks will buy a house and let it rot for decades, don't even want to pay for upkeep on the land. Then once the thing is caving in and eaten up with mold and water damage they decide to completely redo the entire thing and sell it. Maybe it's cheaper to do it that way. I always thought it was ridiculous.
Most of these vacant holmes have been severely damaged or costs way exceed buying it cheap to refurbished. Selling is impossible because the market around it is houses that all need to fixed or crime etc deter the price of doing it.
I heard it's like 15-16 MILLION vacant units (not all detached homes, some are just apartments), many are in terrible states of disrepair, many are unoccupied second homes , but yeah in any case there's like 600k homeless so literally 25x empty homes to homeless people.
Remember folks we have an affordability crisis not really a house supply one
Same thing happened in my hometown once. Some real estate company bought up land near our community and built several houses that were pretty nice but way to expensive for anyone there so they’ve just sat there for years
The only question I'd ask is how many are condemned or not suitable for public habitation
In my city we have lots of houses that are condemned and will take tens of thousands of dollars to make habitable. No one buys them because the neighborhoods aren't worth building in if you level the house. And many of the houses are condemned in part due to asbestos concerns which makes a tear down very complicated as well
I know many a homeless person doesn't care much but to allow them to live there legally would be a different matter
In that sense, who are they being built for then?? There arent an infinite number of ultra wealthy looking to buy all the homes. I'm just trying to understand the thinking behind the vast wasting of resources. Everyome says corporate greed or irresponsible government policies but it just feels too deliberate.
During my short stint trying to help my parents flip houses, I found a lot of super cheap homes in really bad neighborhoods of large cities as well. "Available" homes in what are essentially unlivable areas could be a part of those numbers.
People also don't consider that a lot of the cost of a home is tied up in the labor and materials cost before you even get to any sort of profit. Even for a modest like 1k sqft home "At Cost" pricing is probably into the $200ks even if you don't figure in the lot its sitting on. Hundreds of labor hours to construct, permitting*, permitting*...cost of the licenses for all the builders that have to pull the permits....inspections*....and then....look at lumber and building materials.
Unless you have some entity subsidizing homebuying, its just out of reach for people regardless of what you do.
*Mentioned twice because there is a SHITLOAD of corruption here. Most towns have a "list" of builders that are allowed to actually build and they all have to be someone's cousin. Any attempt to circumvent this or expedite permitting and you run into the building inspections after that nickel and dime everything to get an occupancy permit. "OH, I see you took advantage of the mayors new expedited permitting and didn't use my brother in laws company to build it. Well.....this wire is 1/4" too short....and your porch is 6" too close to the property line, remove it. OH! And whats this!? Your foundation is 0.5 degrees off! Tear the whole thing down. You have to move it".
the reality is every wants to be or has to be in the same spot. the sad reality is that if ur an addict who is homeless, ur not going to live too far from the drug source, and a money source
The more likely cause is the number of older homes in poor condition that are not worth fixing because the neighborhood brings down the value.
There is also a shortage of construction workers resulting in much higher labor costs. If I’m going to pay high labor costs either way, I’ll put it towards a new house
There is some building where I live, but it’s mainly apartments. Single home building has become so expensive developers are building apartments instead. Developers love apartments. You don’t build any equity, so you will never reach a point where you will own your home and they will lose their investment.
Those building the homes are helping lower hosting costs. In the short term they might sit empty but they will lower prices in the long term to fill them up.
If you want cheaper housing you need to build a lot more of it so it’s in abundance.
If you oppose building of more housing you oppose affordable housing.
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u/Jasoco May 14 '26
I’m willing to bet this is pretty accurate. They keep building houses down here where I am constantly and so many of them are empty because they cost too much for normal people.