[macinjosh]

> The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level.

If the property tax is paid and the maintenance is kept up what is the problem created solely by the fact some homes are empty? The only reason these properties have such high values is because there is a demand that is not being supplied. Supplying more housing makes this a non-issue.

> San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insanely restrictive development laws.

This is the real issue. Governments restrict housing supply for whatever misguided reasons and prices go up, those prices make it a good place to park cash. Government should stop picking winners and losers.

[sidlls]

The fact that there are so many empty homes should be a bright, shining clue that basic supply vs. demand isn't the only factor at work.

[deelowe]

Correlation doesn't equal causation. How would parking money in a depreciating asset benefit a foreign investor? They clearly aren't cashflow positive, so some other outside influence is causing this and it is limited to a few specific cities, so it has to be some localized effect.

Some look at the situation, question what's different about SF that might be causing this, and point to the highly restrictive development laws the city has. These prevent new comers from entering the market leaving only those who are primarily playing the long game and looking to build wide moats. If investors who required a much shorter return could compete, it's assumed the situation would normalize

If this isn't the case, then what is the underlying issue? Simply attacking wealthy people for doing something that is a) completely legal and b) obviously providing them some sort of benefit doesn't solve the underlying problem. To look at it another way, SF has clearly been trying to "solve" this problem through increased regulation for many decades now. Where are the success stories we can point to that show the direct approach is working?

[erik_seaberg]

When it's pretty much not legally possible to increase supply, runaway demand explains the problem pretty well.

[sidlls]

38000 empty homes is problematic in a city the size of SF with population size 900k. This isn’t just a problem of supply shortage (regardless of the reason for the shortage).

[nicksellen]

> This is the real issue. Governments restrict housing supply for whatever misguided reasons and prices go up, those prices make it a good place to park cash. Government should stop picking winners and losers.

Restriction of housing is not limited to Government, housing developers also do it:

"[Kate] Barker reached a similar conclusion in her interim report, where she noted that in order to maximize their profits, developers control the rate of production and ‘trickle out’ no more than 100–200 houses a year from a large development. ‘This may not be desirable from society’s point of view,’ she wrote." (from https://www.annaminton.com/bigcapital)

Personally, I trust the reasons that a Government would limit housing more than I would a for-profit company who are probably operating in the interests of investors who don't live in the affected areas.

Even more than Big Government control though, I would prefer the people that live in an area to have the biggest say into how things are run.

[macinjosh]

Corporations who collude with or otherwise use government/laws to manipulate markets in their favor are even worse in IMO.

The fact still remains though that the housing developers wouldn't be able to trickle out homes at their whim if the government enforced limits on housing weren't preventing other developers from competing.

[wetpaws]

You can't satisfy demand for speculative assets. China tried to do it by building entire cities, and still failed.

[asdff]

Because they are a contraction on the housing supply in a city with too many jobs and not enough homes. It's an ouroboros; by taking more supply out of existence, prices go up, and the play becomes even more profitable.

[damnyou]

If there are homes that are vacant and people that are living on the streets at the same time, that's an inherently unjust situation I think.

[jetrink]

If an injustice is one symptom of a deeper problem, is it a good idea to focus on treating the symptom? That approach helps minimize the visibility of the problem while diverting energy (public attention, political capital, financial resources) that could be used in solving the root issue.