There are plenty of landlords right now happy to rent an apartment to a couple each with 6 figure salaries and no debt. But if they can't find such a couple, they'd rather leave their apartment empty.
There are lots of landlords like that, and the end result is there are lots of empty apartments and lots of other people who can't find housing.
The vacancy rate in the US is not high, at least according to statistics. I don’t know where this “lots of vacant apartments” narrative is coming from.
> There are lots of landlords like that, and the end result is there are lots of empty apartments and lots of other people who can't find housing.
The solution for that are serious vacancy taxes. If people are unwilling to assume the risk of hitting a "dud", they can always sell their property to some large-scale landlord.
Landlords taxed too much for vacant properties would just knock the property down and keep the land. Then later, when they want to recoup their investment, they rebuild.
Most properties it isn't the building that is valuable, but the inner city land where one can build a building.
There are plenty of landlords right now happy to rent an apartment to a couple each with 6 figure salaries and no debt. But if they can't find such a couple, they'd rather leave their apartment empty.
There are lots of landlords like that, and the end result is there are lots of empty apartments and lots of other people who can't find housing.