Key Takeaways
- The global housing paradox: millions of empty homes coexist with an acute affordability and housing-quality crisis.
- Practical innovations such as market intermediaries and startups; vacant-space registries; adaptive use models such as room-sharing platforms, etc., can help address this housing paradox, but policy, zoning and land-use reform (unlocking urban land, missing-middle zoning, parking reform) are central levers.
Summary
- There is a spatial and typological mismatch in housing. Empty homes often sit in rural/peri-urban locations or are the wrong size/price for current household needs. Drivers include:
- Demand concentration in cities – rural housing empties while cities tighten.
- Global shrinkage in household size raises per-capita housing demand and shifts preferred unit types (more single/one-person households).
- Large legacy stock of oversized housing (baby-boomer homes) sits unused because smaller/central units cost as much or more.
- Land cost dominates housing cost, especially in dense metropolitan markets.
- Building lots of units alone is not sufficient; where and what you build matters:
- Peri-urban, car-dependent housing is environmentally and fiscally costly compared with urban, gentle density.
- Poorly targeted subsidies or land policy can produce vacant, stranded or low-value housing investments.
- Subsidized suburban sprawl often produces homes too far from jobs raising the environmental and fiscal costs per household.
- There is a spatial and typological mismatch in housing. Empty homes often sit in rural/peri-urban locations or are the wrong size/price for current household needs. Drivers include:
How can Cities apply these learnings?
- Reform zoning to allow missing-middle housing (duplexes, four-plexes, townhouses, low-rise apartments) near transit.
- Encourage adaptive re-use (vacant buildings, large houses) and innovative operating models (e.g., room-level rentals, co-living).
- Reassess who benefits from current subsidies (mortgage interest deductions, land/tax breaks) and redesign to target households most in need.
- Implement and evaluate vacancy taxes where administratively feasible.
Interesting resources
- PadSplit — private operator converting large houses into room-level rentals (~20,000 housing units acquired in the USA).
- Empty Space — an app by Habitat for Humanity UK that lets citizens flag unused urban properties for potential reuse.
Ideas for further research
- Case studies of Mexico’s policy reversal (from mass suburban housing to urban renewal/densification) to extract lessons on sequencing and institutional change.
- Comparative studies of vacant-home programs (Japan/ Italy rural repopulation schemes) to understand the limits of rural repopulation incentives versus urban investment needs.
