[palmer_fox]

My (very limited, admittedly) observation is that people who own multiple properties do not panic-react to the market changes. A great example of that is London, where a vast number of houses and flats are unoccupied and that doesn't seem to bother the very affluent class owning the properties.

[PheonixPharts]

I think the main difference is that, at least in the US, a lot of people that bought multiple homes in the last few years are fairly heavily leveraged. It's not "very affluent class owning the properties", but people that took out a another mortgage because they thought real estate was a sure bet.

The real issue in the US is going to come down to how many people can continue to afford multiple homes which is where rising interest rates and inflation both come into play. Anyone that bought a second home using an ARM may be forced into paying much more than they thought, and rising interest rates are going to put additional pressure on people with investment properties as they may need more liquidity sooner than originally expected to cover routine expenses.

[vidarh]

The notion of lots of empty houses and flats in London is severely exaggerated. Sure, there are some tiny areas where lots of owners are people who have multiple homes, and so spends little time each place. But most of London haven't got that much empty space.

The London rental market is if anything completely overheating at the moment due to lack of supply.

[palmer_fox]

Both West London and (surprisingly) East London had many unoccupied houses a few years back. Even in areas around Hackney road / Bethnal Green, which I would guess are not even really investment properties but more like long-term wealth assets.

Agreed on the overheated market. My argument was that these properties are completely off the market and the owners won't panic-sell them

[vidarh]

London is generally nowhere near the top of the list of places with empty housing in the UK. It's "many" only because of the relative density.

As of April 2022, only about 34k properties were classed as long term vacant in London out of around 3.7m housing units, with Southwark, Newham and Barnet at the top of the lists, largely because of redevelopment projects that meant clearing out tenants first, as well as time to get people into new developments afterwards.

<1% empty housing is not unusually high for an area experiencing a lot of renewing and new builds.

[Bukhmanizer]

Agreed. Largely because they have the capital to hold on to the property, and also for as long has anyone has been alive, in most places owning a house has been either a safe or unbelievably lucrative investment.