When I worked in a rural county housing came in 3 forms: retirees who fully owned, rental tenants with absentee landlords (usually the children of deceases retirees), and then vacant homes.
Many were vacant for varieties of reasons. Some because they were vacation homes. Others because they were in some stage of the market (repair, and renovation). Others were empty nest situations and the owners lived abroad or out of state all winter/summer. (A lot of RV snowbirds) But then most prime real estate (lakefront properties) were just occupied a few weeks at a time by a rotating group of extended family and friends.
What was becoming a problem at the time (within the last decade) were the latter category becoming airBnBs and private equity investments because of their inherent value.
And those drive up the costs everywhere else, making everyone and everything clamp down because you can only take advantage of investment bubbles by leveraging debt, which is not a strategy people in need of housing csn make.
When I worked in a rural county housing came in 3 forms: retirees who fully owned, rental tenants with absentee landlords (usually the children of deceases retirees), and then vacant homes.
Many were vacant for varieties of reasons. Some because they were vacation homes. Others because they were in some stage of the market (repair, and renovation). Others were empty nest situations and the owners lived abroad or out of state all winter/summer. (A lot of RV snowbirds) But then most prime real estate (lakefront properties) were just occupied a few weeks at a time by a rotating group of extended family and friends.
What was becoming a problem at the time (within the last decade) were the latter category becoming airBnBs and private equity investments because of their inherent value.
And those drive up the costs everywhere else, making everyone and everything clamp down because you can only take advantage of investment bubbles by leveraging debt, which is not a strategy people in need of housing csn make.
Which perpetuates the feedback loop.