this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Except when financial incentives line up so that it’s more profitable to let an apartment go vacant than it is to decrease rent to an affordable level.
Just go to Seattle - you’ll see apartment buildings at less than 50% capacity with rent starting at $2500/mo, immediately adjacent to homeless camps.
The financial incentives don't line up because there isn't enough (affordable) housing supply. Build more and they will be forced to drop their rates or sit vacant forever losing money. Some areas also have ass-backwards tax schemes that allow you to write off lost income from a "vacancy" as a loss. I'm not sure if Seattle does this but that is another major driver of those obnoxiously high rent vacant apartments in some areas.