
Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty - pseudolus
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/03/barcelona-affordable-housing-spain-apartment-rental-fines/584902/
======
mcv
In Amsterdam, any property that has been empty for over a year can be legally
squatted, and once in, legal squatters may be hard to get out. For this
reason, landlords tend to rent out their empty properties cheaply as "anti-
kraak" (anti-squat), on the condition that the tenant moves out when the
landlord needs the property again. This is quite popular for students because
you often get a ridiculous amount of space for very little money, though it
may come with excessive restrictions.

Amsterdam has (or used to have, perhaps) a pretty healthy squatting culture.
Many squatters are ideologically driven and improve the neighbourhoods they're
squatting in.

~~~
gadders
I've never understood the pro-squatting arguments. It's theft, no?

~~~
Xylakant
The German constitution mandates that (property) ownership brings obligations
for the public good. Ownership is a construct secured by society, so society
as a whole must at least partially benefit. As such, keeping a building empty
can be considered theft, too.

~~~
geezerjay
> As such, keeping a building empty can be considered theft, too.

Your assertion makes zero sense even if we accept your thesis at face value.
For example, it's absurd to leap from "society mut at least partially benefit"
from private property to assert that private property not being used in
compliance to your personal taste to be theft. That's just plain nuts from any
angle.

~~~
Xylakant
You’re absolutely welcome to make an argument how a building kept deliberately
empty of tenants over years benefits society.

You can consider that position nuts, but given the amount of public support
and legal backing for a current initiative in Berlin to enact eminent domain
against entities that hold > 3000 flats, “plain nuts from any angle” seems to
be slightly exaggerated.

------
otherme123
A lot of text, but didn't read the obvious: Spain is having three elections in
the next month. This is an electoral stunt with no reality behind. The
statistics show that Barcelona (and Madrid) are at a historical minimum of
empty houses available, yet the spanish population is migrating from smaller
cities to the big ones. This is pushing the rents up, and the politicians are
obligated to "do something". Colau, Barcelona major, has already fought
against AirBnB last year, turned Barcelona in a heaven for squatters, and now
this. Rents keeps going up, as the problem shown in the stats is the lack OF
NEW HOUSES.

Spain suffered the worst housing bubble in 2007, and even now talking about
building more is anathema. For Colau is even worst, as she built his political
career fighting against the bubble.

~~~
lawlessone
>are at a historical minimum of empty houses available, yet the spanish
population is migrating from smaller cities to the big ones.

So doing this in Barcelona actually makes sense then?

~~~
vonmoltke
I read that as "the properties aren't empty", not "there are lots of people
keeping empty properties off the market".

~~~
ahoy
Doesn't that make empty properties especially offensive then?

~~~
zulln
There has never been as few empty properties as there is now (according to
parent comment). As such, it should be less of a problem now than before? Not
the other way around?

------
eli
DC has a punitive property tax rate for vacant (and even more so for
“blighted”) properties. Seems like it works ok, though there are loopholes and
questions about how well it’s implemented. Also means that a developer who
actually wants to clean up a blighted property and flip it now has to go
through extra steps, since they surely don’t want to pay steep taxes in the
meantime.

~~~
jonstewart
ANC Commissioner here. You can get an exemption from the vacant property
status with a building permit.

There are a couple problems with implementation. First, DCRA is such a fucked
agency that they widely miss out on rating properties as vacant. The property
two doors down from me has been vacant for two years and I’ve reported it a
couple times and they still won’t rate it vacant (and I’m an elected
official). The DC Auditor released a report last year highlighting this
problem, which costs DC tens of millions a year. Second, most developers will
create a separate LLC for each property and they’re happy to not pay taxes and
have a lien put out, etc., on the probability that they’ll be able to flip it
before foreclosure happens. If they do run into problems, the LLC lets them
cut their losses. DC needs to move faster and blacklist two-bit developers who
do this (I have a blighted property in my district where this has happened,
and the District is out of options).

DC’s new short-term rental restrictions might help free up some apartments.
We’ll see.

------
christkv
I would like to see this in my city center (Oviedo, Spain) but for another
reason. Commercial store front is sitting empty and rents are not getting
lowered to match the demand. I suspect it's due to funds or banks owning the
property and not caring. However for the city itself this is bad as it hinders
new economic activity as well potentially leaves blight in the near future.

------
president
San Francisco recently did a similar thing but with commercial storefronts:
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Vacancy-glut-
in...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Vacancy-glut-in-SF-could-
spur-tax-on-empty-13554017.php).

~~~
tareqak
The city of Vancouver has the Empty Homes Tax.

Quote from [0]:

Each year, one owner of residential property in Vancouver is required to
submit a property status declaration to determine if their property is subject
to the tax.

Properties deemed empty will be subject to a tax of 1% of the property’s 2018
assessed taxable value.

Most homes will not be subject to the tax, as it does not apply to principal
residences or homes rented for at least six months of the year; however, all
homeowners are required to submit a declaration.

Net revenues from the Empty Homes Tax will be reinvested into affordable
housing initiatives.

End quote

[0] [https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-
homes-t...](https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-
tax.aspx)

~~~
phamilton
What's property tax in Vancouver? Is this essentially a doubling of property
tax? (1% is a fairly common property tax amount)

~~~
smnrchrds
In general, municipalities are not allowed to run a deficit in Canada. Since
high taxes which would result in having a surplus are politically unpopular,
usually municipalities get just enough tax to fund their programs. That is
when they are writing their annual budget, they define their total expenditure
E, the total assessed value of all properties within their municipality V, and
set the tax rate for the year by dividing E/V [1].

Because of how inflated the values of homes in Vancouver are, V is huge. So
E/V is much smaller than the rest of the country. In 2018, the tax rate for
residential properties was 0.246826% [2]. A 1% surtax would more than
quintuple the amount of taxes owed.

[1] It's a bit more complicated than that. Residential and commercial
properties have different tax rates for example. But not too much more
complicated. Municipalities are not allowed to charge sales or income taxes
like they do in some other countries.

[2] [https://vancouver.ca/home-property-
development/residential.a...](https://vancouver.ca/home-property-
development/residential.aspx)

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Wow, thanks for this, I did not know this and now it makes much more sense as
to why international investors saw Vancouver real estate as a piggy bank. In
Texas many localities have property taxes of about 2.5% (though no state
income tax).

I wish places would do graduated property taxes - I don't know of any place
that does that (with the exception of relatively meager homestead exemptions
and a few "mansion taxes"). I.e. if you really want to invest in affordable
housing, why not have, say, first 100k have very low tax, 100-500k a
reasonable tax, etc. Many municipal water and electricity bills work this way
and they work well in promoting conservation.

~~~
toast0
I like the idea, but I think you would end up with many lots getting
subdivided so that more of their tax would be at lower rates. And then the
small lots cause logistical issues later.

------
Scoundreller
Why is it a fine? Why not a tax?

Taxing unused spaces sitting idle makes a lot more sense than income (ie:
people’s work).

~~~
kradroy
In the US fines are not tax deductible, so that's one fiscal difference
between taxes and fines. I have no idea if Spain considers fines to be tax
deductible or not.

~~~
DrJokepu
On the other hand, in the United States the Eighth Amendment forbids imposing
excessive fines, and a very good argument could be made that some of these
fines could be classified as “excessive”.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
The aim of laws is compliance. If the low and medium fines of previous years
have failed to achieve compliance, and fines eventually escalate to high, I'd
argue it's far from excessive. If it were excessive a much lower amount would
have achieved general compliance with that particular law, would it not?

~~~
lallysingh
Our regular human ideas for excessive don't count. There's a legal standard
there. I don't know it.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Nobody does, really. It has to be defined in context of the 'gravity of the
offence'. I'm sure someone could make a good argument that 1% of the value of
a property is reasonable.

~~~
londons_explore
As a 'fine', 100 or even 200 percent of a property could be argued reasonable.
'You aren't using this property as the law intended, so you have to give it to
us and pay a penalty'.

If I steal an apple from Walmart, should the fine be 1 percent of the value of
the apple? Clearly not.

------
supernova87a
I'm curious about the legal grounds for such a tax or fine.

If local zoning already governs what may be built or operated on a property,
what principle allows a government to levy fines for _lack_ of use of a
property that has been built and maintained to the required zoning? (if to all
other requirements, the property is not derelict, in poor condition, a blight
or public nuisance?)

I didn't think that you could be compelled to be a landlord.

(By the way, Oakland also is attempting to put in place such a regulation, but
to my knowledge, they have dumbed it down with so many exceptions -- elderly,
destitute, social justice, etc. etc. that it's meaningless)

~~~
nostrademons
The article addresses that:

"The law the city is using, which gives it scope to fine negligent landlords
after two years of leaving a property vacant, has in fact been in place since
2007 (before Colau’s election) but wasn’t implemented until during her
tenure."

If a law's enacted by voters, and no law of a higher political body
contradicts it, then that's what the government is allowed to do.

~~~
supernova87a
Well, that's basically what I'm interested in. Whether this law would stand if
challenged with a constitutional due process (or other appropriate) claim.

------
amarte
I'm surprised no one has mentioned China here.

I was recently able to travel to China for the first time and was fascinated
to learn about their housing market. Apparently the Chinese government doesn't
have a property tax.

For men in China, owning a home is already incredibly important. It's
practically a requirement for getting married, to the point where a woman's
family would almost certainly disapprove of a marriage if the man doesn't own
a home (which, keep in mind, would be called an apartment in the US). So that
coupled with China's huge population means there's already a major demand for
owning a home.

China is also experiencing incredible economic growth. Local governments are
pouring money into "economic development areas" where you can find modern
shopping malls, skyscrapers for businesses, and lots and lots and lots of
(what we would call) apartment buildings.

And this isn't just happening in Beijing or Shanghai. There are "tier 3"
cities in China with populations the size of LA and NY where you see clusters
of dozens and dozens of 40-50 story apartment buildings shooting up.

I was told that the value of homes in these economic development areas -- even
in "tier 3" cities -- is going up by an absolute minimum of 10-15%/yr (that's
being conservative). So if you have money in China, of course you invest in
housing. There's no property tax.

When I see these clusters of apartment buildings popping up all over the
country, I really wonder how many people are actually living in them, and how
many are just getting turned around year after year for a profit. Chinese
people have an unfathomable amount of trust in their government (from a
westerner's perspective), so when I asked some friends about this, their
response was basically, the government will take care of it. Regardless, very
interesting place!

~~~
zanny
Policies like that are going to backfire in the long run though. If the wealth
being generated by productive exports is being hoarded in unutilized housing
there are long tail effects that will slow down the economy - the housing
sitting idle isn't productive, and when the investors try to capitalize on
their property in the future they will just be rent seeking the difference
between the construction price and their sale price.

Its happening around the world. The rich realize that one of the scarcest
resources is space and land and are powerful enough to manipulate governments
into just letting them hoard their money in housing. Because for the states
where this happens everyone loses except the rich - housing becomes
prohibitively expensive for the working class, rising property values leech
productivity and growth and stall out consumerism, and all the money that
created the situation could have better been used creating productive business
rather than rotting in a cyclic property investment bubble.

------
akulbe
It doesn't make sense to me why they'd _WANT_ to leave them empty?? If I were
a landlord, I'd be doing my best to keep the rentals occupied as much as
possible.

~~~
baroffoos
Because renting doesn't make you that much money and you have to work for it.
Just leaving it sitting there and selling it later is no effort profit

~~~
conanbatt
But its the exact opposite. Rental is generally profitable. You can bet on
land while also renting and making extra money.

You can't argue that they are greedy for buying land but not greedy enough to
squeeze more money out of it.

The answer is somewhere else.

~~~
refurb
In places with rent control, having a tenant reduces the value of the home.
Sometime substantially if their rent is locked at a low rate.

It’s not unusual to buy tenants out in SF before putting the home on the
market. Spend $50k to get them to leave and the value of the home goes up
$200k.

If you know you’re going to sell in a few years, basically the value of the
rent (adjusting for buyout) is way less than the incremental profit from
selling an empty building.

~~~
conanbatt
Then the problem is rent control, and the solution is not to tax empty homes.

~~~
ramshorns
Rent control is the solution to a different problem. Without it, landlords
have the power to make people homeless.

~~~
conanbatt
Didn't know rent-control people harbored the homeless.

------
aasasd
Sounds similar to UK's former “squatters' rights”―where squatting was legal
after the WW2, so that someone looked after buildings and neighborhoods.

~~~
digianarchist
And eventually took ownership of them after seven years.

------
tschellenbach
It sounds nice, but the real question is why are people letting these building
sit empty. There is probably a good reason for it. Maybe some renter
protection laws that went too far?

~~~
nickparker
When I've seen these discussions before the two big factors cited are:

* Real estate investors can borrow against the long term income of their properties, and often value that above the short term rents. They also tend to be highly leveraged to build the next project. This creates situations where high vacancies and poor returns are worthwhile because they can pretend they'll fill the building at their price eventually, and therefore borrow against the building as though it would return that price X all their units X however many years.

* A lot of people seem to think (I haven't dug into the true scale of this) that enormous amounts of money from China is being parked in Western real estate as some sort of protection against seizure by the government.

~~~
hannasanarion
Not just China, but Arabia and Russia too. The Manhattan Skyline is
increasingly defined by enormous residential skyscrapers with condos that sell
for hundreds of millions of dollars, and sit empty year-round.

------
kabacha
I live in one of such buildings in Thailand and I love it!

I live in 30 store high new condo that is pretty much bought out by chinese
investors and few seasonal tourists. There are probably 200 people living here
and on my floor I have 1 neighbour. There's a pool, sauna and a gym in the
building and with so few inhabitants you often have it all somewhat private.

As an expat I definitely benefit from this. I've tried to look into what
locals think of this and couldn't really find any strong opinions. In fact
I've noticed a trend that locals tend to invest into condos themselves
nowdays.

It's an intersting contrast to the problem Barcelona and San Francisco is
facing - leaving housing empty might not be the core issue here at all as it
clearly works perfectly fine for some places.

~~~
okr
Is this not spooky? No noises? The drops of water somewhere? And you always
start to wonder who this might be, who landed at my floor with the elevator?
It actually triggers one of my childhood dreams. To be alone in a skyscraper.
:)

~~~
kijin
You are Bruce Willis. You are alone in a skyscraper, except for a bunch of
terrorists and their hostages all rounded up on the top floor.

That doesn't sound like my childhood dream, but it sure sounds like a fun
Hollywood flick. :)

------
pbiggar
Does anyone know why is it that seemingly every major city is having an
affordability crisis at the same time?

~~~
elihu
My take on it is that there aren't enough desirable cities available to employ
and house all the people who want to live in them. This can be addressed by
either increasing the capacity of those cities, by making existing undesirable
cities more desirable, or just creating new desirable cities where no city
currently exists.

~~~
graeme
Spot on. I think zoning is a big part of it. It would be illegal to build most
of the world’s desirable cities now. Local zoning requires less mixed use,
wider streets, more mandatory parking, etc

My dense, desirable neighbourhood in montreal couldn’t be build elsewhere in
north america. But itnisn’t a safety ir code thing. The local zoning is
actually reasonable: it’s just the laws are more anti-urbanist elsewhere.

------
deepsun
It's kinda easy to make it look like a building is occupied and avoid the
fine. It's kinda hard for authorities to prove otherwise.

~~~
WhiteMonkey
You're right, Land Value Tax (LVT) would be much better, as other European
cities use.

It's hard to off-shore property in a tax haven too.

It's one of those policies that is popular with virtually everyone right until
the moment they get into power and meet the wealthy landowners/donors.

~~~
Scoundreller
Why not both?

------
crazygringo
In this conversation, it seems like people ignore the fact that there's a
societal _benefit_ to leaving buildings empty, at least in economic theory.

Which is that it's keeping the space open for more productive use in the long
term.

Suppose you own a storefront or apartment that could fetch $5K/month right
now, but you think it will fetch $10K/month in 3 years, and that leases are 10
years long.

Well, the people/businesses who can afford $10K/month are by definition more
economically productive: the people must have higher-paying jobs, and the
businesses must be more productive economically.

If economic trends are such that you expect them to show up in 3 years ago but
not right now, it's overall more productive for society to keep the properties
empty for 3 years, and then get 7 years of the doubled rent.

Otherwise, if you were forced into 10-year leases now, then in 3 years' time,
all those people and businesses won't have locations they can move into.
Because of supply and demand, the small remaining inventory will be pushed up
to, say, $20K/month, which will be unaffordable, and the city will be left
with less economically productive people/business locked in, and economic
growth will happen in other locations instead.

Now, certain laws/zoning/factors can distort this in possibly undesirable
ways, and if you don't like gentrification then you won't like that either.
And all this depends on where the market thinks the economy is going --
landlords are taking a bet, and there's no guarantee they'll be right, but
that's the case with any investment.

But as a general rule, landlords letting properties sit vacant are actually
providing an economic service, by ensuring future availability when it's even
more valuable. Yet articles about vacant properties rarely seem to mention
this. I'm not sure why.

~~~
AbrahamParangi
Hmm. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't understand how more efficient rent-
collection (and literal rent-collection at that) is productive. I mean, isn't
it definitionally not "productive"?

I mean you can make the argument that by being more efficient at rent
collection over some time horizon you funnel more money to yourself and other
local industries but isn't this basically just a cost to everyone else at
every other scale of time and space?

~~~
noobermin
Whenever this argument is made, there seems to be this conflation of
"economically good" and "x made me money." Just because you make money (or
make more money) doing something doesn't mean it's a net good for society.

~~~
crazygringo
Of course, but that's a much deeper issue. Today, we generally accept that in
a free market without externalities, private profit = public good. If you
disagree, you can take that up with Adam Smith and the invisible hand. ;)

------
petre
Why fine? Switzerland has a different approach. Regardless if you're keeping
your property empty, you rent it or you're living in it, you're palying the
same amount of tax - what you'd pay on the rent if you'd rent it. The tax is
adjusted evey six months or so with the medium rent.

------
fergie
This is the argument for squatting in a nutshell. Allowing people or
organizations to hoard unused property in urban areas is damaging and should
be strongly discouraged.

Legalizing squatting in these scenarios is a nice low-regulation way of making
sure that property is always being used.

------
rk1079
This is also the case (tax not fine) in Melbourne Australia. Largely because
of the perception that many high-end properties are being used to park money
by overseas investors and left empty.

[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2017/mar/06/victo...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2017/mar/06/victoria-to-tax-investors-who-leave-properties-vacant-for-
more-than-six-months)

------
hestefisk
This is also the case in Denmark. It is considered illegal to keep buildings
empty. The government can force the landlord to rent them out.

------
jdlyga
Barcelona has really good urban planning ideas that I wish New York would take
a look at. It feels like we're a decade behind them.

~~~
danieldisu
I think people in Barcelona may want to differ, rent prices have increased a
lot due to tourism and expats flocking to Barcelona, while salaries for people
outside the tech bubble are almost the same.

All these articles featuring all the good things that Barcelona is doing are
just marketing...

~~~
collyw
Tech salaries aren't great here. They are going up but still low compared to
rent costs.

------
telesilla
Vice released this short doc recently, shows the ugly side of the system where
narcopisos get a foothold on a property in the Raval

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTdmpjo5zkg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTdmpjo5zkg)

------
Chico11Kidlet
Spain's government is simply trying to hide the fact that it is the #1 problem
in the Spanish economy. [after the 2008 recession, economic researchers at
Univerisidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid put out an analysis of the government's
investments in alternative energy, which had been lavish. Results: every
alternative energy job created resulted in 2.2 jobs lost in the rest of the
economy. The average alternative energy job cost the taxpayer $800,000. Each
job in the wind industry cost the taxpayer $1.4 million. The subsidies for
photovoltaic installations were such that people would buy a solar panel,
which would then qualify them for getting "net metering". They would then buy
a gas generator and drive the meter backwards, and make enough money to pay
for the generator, gasoline, the disconnected solar panel, and a tidy profit.

~~~
mprev
The story here is about something mayor of Barcelona is doing, rather than the
national government of Spain.

Also, what does subsidising renewable energy jobs have to do with leaving
residential buildings empty?

------
sturmeh
Meanwhile in Australia you get tax rebates for the very same thing.

------
dbg31415
How do you prove a building is empty?

"Do you have a lease contract?" Easy to get a lot of $1 contracts...

"Did you use water / electricity?" Easy to leave a faucet running or set up
bitcoin miners.

If you go on word of mouth? What about false positives -- I travel for work
and keep an apartment in one city and my house in another. Would that be a
problem?

I don't know how to penalize empty apartments in a way that isn't really easy
to game, or unjustly fair for people who don't just live in one place.

------
NoblePublius
If Bill de Blasio cares about rising rents, he would do this in NYC instead of
persecute Airbnb.

------
dawhizkid
I think NYC is considering a "second home tax" for properties above a certain
value...

------
mistrial9
financial mechanisms and utility have diverged many times in history, but now,
it takes on new gravity as the human population is at unprecedented levels,
with demographics and market forces pushing young adults into cities.

------
Ericson2314
Meanwhile in NYC you can write off your empty unit as a loss!

------
intrasight
I don't the the government should have any say on the matter.

------
Pirolita
People should be able to do whatever they want with their properties

~~~
lsiebert
No, they shouldn't. There are externalities that effect others, and the free
market.

For example, you don't want people doing things that poison groundwater for
the neighbors, right?

Anyway, letting property sit idle benefits the landowner but causes issues for
neighbors, local government and the free market. It means businesses in those
locations get less customers, and local governments less sales tax. If the
property is not cared for, there can be additional issues that lower the value
of other's homes.

It causes rental prices and home prices for buyers to inflate because of the
market distortion, leading to boom bust real estate problems.

Boom and bust effects homesellers and homebuyers, but also, given how often
property tax plays a role in government budgets, dramatically affects local
and state revenue, (and federal revenue in countries with a federal property
tax).

~~~
cellularmitosis
"letting property sit idle benefits the landowner"

Can you help me understand this? I've never understood why any property sits
idle -- the property would need to increase in value fast enough to counteract
property taxes, just for the owner to break even. And that's ignoring the
opportunity cost of not filling the property with tenants.

To me, it seems that it would always make more financial sense to try and hit
100% occupancy, even if that means steeply discounting the rent. Wouldn't an
empty property be hemorrhaging cash?

~~~
TomMckenny
In here are two reasons[1].

Another is this: a building nearly full rented has an easily calculable
valuable based on its income. A building with a higher price but not trying to
rent can, incredibly, claim to have a higher value. Especially if there are
several building nearby claiming the same value.

If there is a debt associated with the building, it is especially in the
owner's interest to keeping the supposed value of the building high even if
they are loosing revenue at the moment.

If a few organizations own a large number of units they can strongly influence
a market both of rental rates and building values by doing this. Undoubtedly
to a net profit or they wouldn't be doing it.

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19427243](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19427243)

------
tomohawk
Maybe we should tax people for voting for politicians who enact laws that
artificially restrict housing? Some places sitting vacant are far less then
problem then restrictions on building.

------
RWildon
Why is no one asking the biggest question; why are people piling into cities
when there are towns and smaller cities that could be developed instead and
thereby lower cost of living. It’s a global phenomenon it seems, as much as it
doesn’t make any sense regardless.

Please save yourself the quality of life arguments. Those are post hoc
arguments that only express laziness.

What state governments should be doing is “redistributing the wealth” by
heavily taxing successful cities to fund and develop less successful counties
and districts and towns. When businesses stop clustering and concentrating in
places like Silicon Valley and NYC then you know that taxation is at the right
level to compensate for the cartel and monopolistic like behaviors and
phenomenon of, e.g., Silicon Valley and SF.

In the USA that should look like heavily taxing Silicon Valley and NYC, etc
and using that money to fund high speed Internet and education and companies
and business centers in under developed regions like rural Alabama or
Mississippi or North Dakota.

~~~
peterbraden
Because the migration to cities has been a large proportion of the increase in
productivity over the last few centuries.

It is more efficient to have urbanised populations. Rural life is already
over-subsidized by urban centers.

~~~
luiscleto
I wonder if remote work opportunities could become significant enough to slow
this trend and make more people prefer smaller/quieter towns to the big city
life while still holding jobs for big industries.

Does anyone happen to know if this effect is/can be a thing or do remote
workers still flock to big cities anyway? I imagine this could eventually lead
to lower rents in cities (but also lower salaries due to increased competition
in cheaper places)

~~~
peterbraden
Remote work is a rounding error compared to the overall migration trends. Many
jobs require presence, and this isn't going to change anytime soon.

