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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

The problem with absenteeism is that while taxes are still being paid to maintain city services, the city doesn't function correctly, because there's weak street life.

Here's an article about the struggles of retailers in Vancouver's Coal Harbour neighbourhood, which has estimates of around 20-25% empty housing.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/at-vancouvers-co...

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Vancouver has a vacancy tax, which strikes me as a really good idea to avoid these problems. Does anyone know why these aren't more popular?

I can imagine they're difficult to enforce.

Enforcement? People gaming the system so it doesn’t look unoccupied?

I agree with you that it seems like a good idea. However, the vacancy tax is still in its infancy, so we've yet to fully understand its effectiveness or side-effects. A big issue around the housing discussion in Vancouver is the lack of data and amount of misinformation being injected into the discussion.

The Netherlands has a system where vacant properties may be occupied by squatters after they've been empty for a year. There's an active squatting scene in Amsterdam, particularly OT301 (an abandoned cinema, now an arts centre).

If the vacancies drive away business, which weakens street life, then would not the low street life drive down real estate prices?

Nope.

Just ask the people in London who live among all the empty properties that have been bought by various Russian oligarchs or other people who want to exfiltrate their wealth from the countries where they "acquired" it.

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