Correct, and even YieldStar has a customer-set vacancy and lease expiration targets that it works towards. RealPage trains the customers to accept a little more vacancy to gain higher lease pricing.
Landowners get the biggest subsidy of all in the US, where they pay proportionally very little to the local government’s operational costs, and benefit the most from the law and order, judiciously systems, and education of the local populace.
And instead of going after landowners for reaping the rewards of sitting on unproductive uses of land that everyone has to spend extra time and energy to travel around, the government even gives them tax breaks (1031 exchange, property tax caps), and instead goes after people who actually perform work (income tax).
Speculation driven rises in residential real estate prices buy/rent are a plague on society and we need to stop framing the problem so that we lose sight of the purpose of housing, it’s to house people…
What's the right period of vacancy to allow for 1, 2, 3, and 4-bedroom units as a function of floor level, direction faced, time of year, elevator or not, age of building, distance to school and transit, etc?
The unit can provide utility as long as it is fit to live in. The only question is what price people are willing to pay for it.
We can even generously set it at 1 year just to start things off. If landlords are still too comfortable keeping units empty for the sole purpose of holding out for another price, then it can be revised lower.