Comments by "Jamiel De Abrew" (@JamielDeAbrew) on "Why Are Rents Getting More and More Expensive?" video.

As more people work from home, they move to into larger homes. Sometimes this is by moving further away from their work offices to benefit from cheaper housing or cheaper rent. This additional demand for rooms (eg home office room) has increased demand for rooms and decreased the supply of rooms.
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There should be an empty property tax on both residential and commercial properties. This would push owners to either use, rent or sell.
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If rents were cheap enough, people would stay in these rural areas. People that can work from home would work in these areas to benefit from the crazy cheap rental prices. People on low incomes would make the sacrifice of increased travel time to benefit from crazy cheap rental prices. Travellers would stay further away from tourist destinations to enjoy the insanely low prices. Because the rental prices are so low, residents would have more money. They would spend some of this money at local businesses (restaurants, retail etc… ). This spending would trigger business upgrades and new businesses. Of course, no investor would want to have rent fall this low. This is why we need an empty property tax. This will force investors to either rent or sell. This would be an efficiency measure. It would increase the efficient use of land. And also buildings on the land (and the materials and labour needed to create these buildings).
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Maybe this is an example of inequality pushing the market out of balance. The wealthy need to park their money somewhere. This leads them to bid on assets, pushing asset prices higher.
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@cedricdellafaille1361 the jury is still out on if workers are more efficient working from the office. I’ve seen many articles saying workers are more efficient from home and vice versa. It seems people are just finding articles that prove the belief they already have. Theoretically, working from home could help to lower taxes. Why? Taxes for for transportation infrastructure - including roads, public transport etc… the more people that work from home, the less new transportation infrastructure is needed. This isn’t only a saving in building and material costs. There is also an efficiency increase in the use of land. Less land will be required for additional lanes and tracks. Less than will be needed for additional car parking spaces. Working from home can also reduce a country’s transportation energy consumption - reducing dependence on foreign oil for many countries. Some people travel an hour to work and an hour home. Some workers are happy to do additional overtime when working from home (essentially sharing the time saved on travel).
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@innosam123 true
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@SigFigNewton think about supply vs demand for rooms. A lot of people share houses (often with people they didn’t previously know). They do this to have cheaper rent than if they rented their own place. If demand for rooms increases by more than supply, it pushes prices up. eg what happens when the prices of larger places increase? People have to live somewhere. Some people then move into smaller places. As this flows through the market, a shortage of rooms leads to a shortage of properties.
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@mramg6038 what country are you referring to? Does this only apply to city areas, or in rural areas too?
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@michaelkendall662 if owners aren’t renting vacation homes when they are empty (perhaps Airbnb) then maybe the taxes are high enough
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@David-lr2vi there is a vacancy tax in Melbourne (city in Australia). The issue is that it is only for very inner city suburbs. For a vacancy tax to truly increase the efficiency (of land, building resources and property building labour), a vacant property tax needs to be applied to both city and rural areas.
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@David-lr2vi Airbnb isn’t all bad. Imagine a homeowner (or permanent renter resident) goes on holiday. That property would be vacant, which is a waste of resources. If the owner (or renter) Airbnb’s their property, more supply is added to the market.
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