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The thing you're seeing with covid is that places are empty for the same reason they became empty, and the owners are speculating that demand will rebound in the future (e.g. once there is a vaccine) so they have no reason to sell for less today.

If you change the zoning at a sufficient scale, rents would be expected to decline permanently, so there would be nothing gained by holding out until tomorrow.

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IIRC Vancouver taxes empty properties more than the ones in use to prevent this kind of speculation.

> The thing you're seeing with covid is that places are empty for the same reason they became empty, and the owners are speculating that demand will rebound in the future (e.g. once there is a vaccine) so they have no reason to sell for less today.

This partly explains why I saw -- with two temporary-by-design blips -- a particular downtown San Jose corner location empty for 10 years. Last I saw, they finally rented it out as an office, but that was just shy of Covid19.

Apparently a decade is the minimum for "wait for better demand" or they had//have pockets deep enough to play a long game.

I just don't understand how some people are happy with empty store-fronts. "I want the blightful eyesore, not the bustling tax money" doesn't make sense to me.

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