Comments on: Empty Houses, part 2 https://marketurbanism.com/2017/06/12/empty-houses-part-2/ Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:30:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1 By: RalphUNC https://marketurbanism.com/2017/06/12/empty-houses-part-2/#comment-21769 Thu, 15 Jun 2017 16:41:00 +0000 http://marketurbanism.com/?p=8629#comment-21769 I think I’ve mentioned this before – but aren’t absentee owners of properties a benefit to cities? (This is assuming there is an owner who is paying all property taxes and keeping the property maintained.)

I ask this because these owners are paying property taxes while using little to no public services (schools, roads, ambulances, etc.). And in my jurisdiction, non-owner occupants pay a higher property tax rate, but I don’t know how common that is.

It seems like a city would want lots of these absentee owners so they could funnel the surplus of property taxes into affordable housing and social services for low-income residents.

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