To the best of my knowledge though, many such houses were left empty to rot, not used for more productive purposes.
I doubt this. Foreclosed houses go to auction and generally someone else buys them. The only time the house would be left vacant is if the house is worthless (either due to location or damage).
Which is indeed really strange and something I don’t really understand. I’d expect that whoever bought the properties after the foreclosure sale would live in it themselves, redevelop the land or put the housing up for rent at a price people would pay. Sure there are edge cases where empty housing makes sense (cities with population collapse = literally more housing stock than needed, super low cost housing which when prices fall the rent doesn’t cover the risk of having tenants) but those seem like edge cases which don’t explain the widespread phenomenon of empty housing.
My immediate thoughts are that either empty houses aren’t really a thing outside of specific cases and the examples we see in media are just a biased sample or that they are and something I don’t understand is going on. I’m leaning towards the latter.
To the best of my knowledge though, many such houses were left empty to rot, not used for more productive purposes.
I doubt this. Foreclosed houses go to auction and generally someone else buys them. The only time the house would be left vacant is if the house is worthless (either due to location or damage).
Which is indeed really strange and something I don’t really understand. I’d expect that whoever bought the properties after the foreclosure sale would live in it themselves, redevelop the land or put the housing up for rent at a price people would pay. Sure there are edge cases where empty housing makes sense (cities with population collapse = literally more housing stock than needed, super low cost housing which when prices fall the rent doesn’t cover the risk of having tenants) but those seem like edge cases which don’t explain the widespread phenomenon of empty housing.
My immediate thoughts are that either empty houses aren’t really a thing outside of specific cases and the examples we see in media are just a biased sample or that they are and something I don’t understand is going on. I’m leaning towards the latter.