Bidding war on houses

[Bailey Guns]

Property tax is collected whether the bldg is occupied or not. Are you thinking of sales tax?

[Martinjmpr]

Property tax is collected whether the bldg is occupied or not. Are you thinking of sales tax?

But it's based on assessed value right?

So what is the value of a property that is not, and never has been, occupied by a paying tenant? And since you mention potential sales tax revenue, what is the value, to a community, of a building or retail center that is unoccupied? I would say that it's not only zero, it's less than zero because even though unoccupied commercial property is not bringing in any sales tax revenue, it is costing the city in terms of needing fire protection, police protection, infrastructure, etc.

All I'm saying is that we seem to have a serious glut of commercial retail space and a serious deficit of living space.

I know older retail spaces are sometimes being torn up and turned into "mixed use" with both residential and retail in the same area.

It just seems to me that if there is such a need for living space (as there seems to be) then there ought to be a solution out there that makes use of the apparently large amount of un needed retail space.

I wonder what the office space vacancy in the metro area is? From the number of partially-occupied buildings I see, I would think it's significant.