[Majromax]

> Do those foreign investors leave the house empty? Who cares if we can just build more?

I'll note here that there is a legitimate complaint to vacant housing. Some expensive city infrastructure like transit is supported by people-density rather than house-density, so a community of empty homes doesn't justify a subway line in the way that a bustling, lived-in community would.

Municipal funding that comes from the provincial level is also supported implicitly by income and sales (value-added) taxes rather than property taxes, so empty homes can easily create an imbalance of cost and revenue. The same also goes for cases of alleged tax evasion, where one globe-trotting patriarch supports their live-in family without declaring and paying Canadian taxes on income as a resident.

[djbebs]

There is no legitimate complaint about empty housing, not just because empty houses pay the same tax as occupied ones, but because empty housing is a myth.

[pedalpete]

Is empty housing a myth? https://openhousing.ca/2020/12/30/vancouver-empty-homes-cros...

I used to live in Yaletown (Vancouver) and the building I lived in was this very tall, maybe 35 story two tower block which only had two elevators. It took me about 6 months to realize that I never saw anybody else in the building. There were only 3 occupied apartments on my floor (I think there were 8 units per floor). I was told the building was designed to be a "piggy bank in the sky" and that low occupancy was in the design.

This is just an anecdote, but I was under the impression low occupancy is an issue in Vancouver so much so that they tried to pass laws regarding empty homes.

[paulmd]

> not just because empty houses pay the same tax as occupied ones

you've literally just responded to a post demonstrating that this is not the case, please don't just do template rants off keywords

[voisin]

Empty housing is a myth? Please explain.