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And where are they located, and why are they empty?
There's your next big problem, a significant fraction of them aren't where people want (or need) to be, or are vacation homes and don't belong in these stats (unless you want to eminent domain them). Suburbs and ghost towns and remote regions pushes the average up.
https://todayshomeowner.com/general/guides/highest-home-vacancy-rates/
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/vacant-houses-2023
Turns out nobody wants to live in checks notes New York City or San Fransisco.
There are definitely large numbers of vacant units in areas that were de-industrialized or hit with natural disasters. However, speculators moving in and gobbling up the properties at their bargain basement rates, then squatting on them to drive up the overall value of real estate in the area, result in artificially high real estate rates across these neighborhoods. Even in places with ostensibly low demand for housing, the prices remain higher than in historical periods of high demand.
Over-development in less accessible places can make neighborhoods unattractive due to the commute. But the solution to this problem is often to improve mass transit in these neighborhoods and develop local public services (schools, post offices, grocery stores, etc) at their centers. Then do the one thing that Americans hate and fear more than anything - BRING IN THE MIGRANTS. Populate the neighborhoods with large socially cohesive cohorts of new people and energize the neighborhoods with public works spending.
This creates a virtuous cycle of economic growth and development that brings in still more people and creates new demand for more goods and services. This is exactly what big midwestern towns did to revitalize in the wake of deindustrialization. Chattanooga, Tennessee installed public Gigabit internet and became the center of a Tennessee tech boom. Detroit accumulated a network of art collectives in its low rent housing and reinvented itself as a cultural center. Atlanta, Georgia is enjoying an enormous economic expansion thanks to new federally subsidized battery plants in the city.
When public policy identifies a housing surplus, policymakers can create a virtuous cycle of development by building new business capacity in the immediate vicinity. Then you solve joblessness, homelessness, and a stagnant economy in one go.
https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-new-york-citys-housing-supply-challenge/ 🤷
I don't disagree with the rest, walkable cities are important, speculators shouldn't be involved in housing, etc. But some places genuinely have a lack of available housing and the solution is to build away.
Some places have a lack of affordable housing. But anywhere you go, you can find living space at a high enough price point.
The only real exception is in the midst of a natural disaster or similar event, at which point the housing is typically exhausted because it is gobbled up by state bureaucracies for housing troops going in or refugees flooding out. And these sudden shortages are resolved by moving people to long term housing in surrounding areas, not by throwing up enormous tower blocks overnight.
That's not even to say we don't need new builds. A lot of the existing housing stock is old, poorly maintained, or inefficient. But the idea that we simply don't have enough units to go around is real estate developer ad copy. It isn't based in reality. And pursuing the policies advocated by the "not enough housing" folks inevitably leads to large new Luxury branded establishments that get sold off to speculators rather than lived in by the unhoused.
Sounds like eminent domain talk if you think there's enough suitable available homes already