I’m baffled that a house, which is insanely expensive for the average person, is sat unused.
Where I live it has become common for rich London people to buy themselves a holiday home here. It’s a couple of hours from London, next to the sea and a popular holiday destination. I have a friend who’s house next to him is empty for most of the year apart from a few weeks when the family drive down for a holiday.
It’s not a super high price house, perhaps £300k, but in an area where houses are in short supply it’s only driving prices higher for local people. I wish I had £300k sat around.
That’s because the government has allowed the London property market to develop as a value store. Seizing empty homes doesn’t really fix the problem as you note, because there’s (quelle surprise) parts of the UK outside of London.
If it’s a test run, they can use strengths and weaknesses to model expansion.
Tackle the issue at its core. Stop greedy investors (including foreign ones) in using housing as a means to make big profit. Houses shouldn’t be a means to make money, it should be for people to live in.
I think there’s room for a multifaceted approach - treat the symptom and the disease itself. But in reality even treating symptoms is already an incredibly high bar, with the sorts of politicians who get elected.
The problem isn’t that good policy ideas don’t exist, of course. That’s never the real problem.
