[gruez]

>it's also to discourage parking money in empty properties when it's one of the most expensive cities to live in and doesn't have enough housing

Is that really needed when the homeowner vacancy rate is 1.3% in the New York-Newark-Jersey City MSA?

https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/rates.html

[lux-lux-lux]

The actual vacancy rate is many times that, as properties are kept off market for a variety of reasons (one of which this tax directly addresses)

[gruez]

Why wouldn't it be captured? This is from the census, so it presumably captures units that aren't on the market.

[queenkjuul]

Lots of the highest-value units are famously empty. The "pencil skyscrapers" in particular were called out in the media.