[Supermancho]

Your first answer is in regard to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent

The second answer was verifiable from multiple markets on my end, in high rent areas like Southern California to Seattle where it was common knowledge that luxury items and land was bought up and left empty...unsurprisingly until China decided to start heavily double taxing foreign assets.

[shawnb576]

I've heard this a lot. Vancouver passed some laws to try to discourage the practice.

That said, I live in Seattle, and have for 25 years. I've lived in some of the nicest neighborhoods (Kirkland, Capitol Hill) and I have not seen or heard of a single actual example of nice places being bought and sitting vacant.

I'm not saying it's never happened, but I've seen zero evidence that it's happening on any scale that effects the market.