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Nitpick: the City of London does not have neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment developments, because the City of London is the one square mile of the city where the financial industry lives. It's equivalent to the Financial District in New York. The only significant chunk of residential building is the Barbican, which is not empty, just awful.

The name of the city as a whole is simply London. You could even call it the city of London if you were being poetic. But as soon as you capitalise it, you're talking about the City of London, and that's something different.

Yes, that is confusing, arbitrary, irritating, and only justified by arcane details of history which predate the printing press by five hundred years. That's because this is England we're talking about.

I actually know the difference between City of London and London because I watched that one clever Youtube video explaining it. However, I don't really have the details internalized as I've not been to London.

To explain what I meant, I was thinking of this article that I read about One Hyde Park: http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residen...

I had merged this info in my head with another link that someone else had already posted, about empty buildings in London owned by offshore corporations.

I wonder if there is a need here for a Luxury AirBnB so that folks who aren't millionaires could spend time in these places that are otherwise going empty. Seems like space could be offered for less than normal rent since anything above $0 would be a gain as long as there was a decent screening process.

You're ignoring the physiological 'cost' of knowing some filthy stranger will be poking around your nice house. Also renting out a place means you cannot store anything of value in the place. For many people who can afford top end apartments in central London, those two 'costs' will be much higher than any income they might get from renting.

Also the value of having a flat like this is knowing that when business requires you to fly to London on 90 minutes notice, at least you'll have somewhere nice and familiar to crash. That is completely lost if there is a chance the someone else might be staying in your apartment when you arrive

If a few people are staying in your six-bedroom apartment when you touch down, surely you can either tolerate their presence for a day, or pay them to go away. You're right to bring up psychology, but it's more abstract: one might trust strangers not to make a mess, or the maids to clean it up, but having one's apartment listed for short-term rental is unthinkable.

The problem from an urban community building perspective is that the owners of the properties are so rich they don't care if the property is used.

It's actually illegal to rent out a pied a terre in Paris.

There is!

http://www.onefinestay.com

A friend of mine used it for some visiting extended family, that he wanted to keep at a slightly extended distance. Spoke highly of it.

However, I'm not sure I've got 3 friends or couples who would be willing to split a house and still pay £150 per person a night.

Their Sherlock entry system looks neat. And a better bet than a curated airbnb clone.

Which clever video was this? Link please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc

Barbican is great. It's beautifully designed - a real icon.

Couldn't agree more - here are some photos for anyone who doesn't know what we are talking about http://stu.radnidge.com/post/42107133867

England traditionally works on the rule that a city is a town with its own cathedral. London has several cathedrals, thus...

There's not a lot of solid data on what degree of Vancouver's housing speculators are overseas investors or local, but there is certainly is a lot of non-resident owners.

Non-resident occupancy approaches 24% in certain neighbourhoods of downtown, and these empty neighbourhoods are becoming ghost towns, an awful business environment for local retail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-est...

I believe that the Vancouver real estate market was also affected by overseas investors in a similar way, making it the least affordable housing market in North America.

I think the real culprit was mortgage rules that let Canadians borrow cheap money for long periods plus need for all people (not just foreigners) to engage in real estate speculation. Ever since the Canadian federal govt tightened up the mortgage rules the market has been in a slump. But everyone loves to blame the overseas investors. Also people like to cherry pick parts of Vancouver as indicative of the foreign buying trend like the West Side, British Properties and Richmond but they fail to look at East Vancouver, New Westminister and Burnaby which has decent housing as well, but is not as desirable.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that some properties are priced high, but no one is buying them. It's also a seller's perception of a hot market that drives up prices.

Where are these "neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment[s]"? It is true that the The City of London, understood as the financial district of Greater London, doesn't have many residents, but this has always been the case. It has never been a residential area. Almost all housing space there is offices.

I think I combined the info in this article with another article about empty buildings elsewhere in London that someone else pointed out

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residen...

Note that the City of London is in some ways a tax haven and a neighborhood in London itself.

It's not a tax haven. It's a deeply idiosyncratic entity with a 1000 year long history, but not a tax haven.

Interesting tangent! Any refs on the tax situation?

Here's an article: http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporati...

Cheers. That one was 'By Nicholas Shaxson Published 24 February 2011', conclusion:

UK Uncut, the spontaneous protest movement opposing offshore tax avoidance by multinationals, has had an impact and now pledges to move against the banks. A big "One London" campaign to merge a divided capital into a single democratic entity may seem far off, but groups such as London Citizens are now thinking about the fairer division of London. The Tax Justice Network, and others, are helping build an intellectual edifice for understanding tax havens. Some of their goals - such as country-by-country reporting by multinationals - are already being partly met. The unions, too, and big NGOs, especially those working in international development, are engaging with the matter. An anti-haven mobilisation is under way in France; something similar may be starting in the US. The IMF, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the EU and other agencies are now at least debating issues they ignored before. Around the world, legislators, regulators and ordinary people are starting to see the toxicity of Britain's role in protecting offshore business that drains billions out of developing countries each year.

I wonder if there's been any positive development.

Ooh, and a nice little summary has just popped up on a forum I read: http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2013/6/16/2013616140...

http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporati...