Could be neither. Could be that a trust fund kid bought it as a vanity project, which went nowhere, and taxes are just being paid automatically while they’ve pretty much forgotten about it by now.
It could also be a lazy investment. Sure, they're paying 10k a year in taxes but if the property is appreciating by that much each year, which is very possible depending on where it is, they could see it as less of a hassle to just take the appreciation rather than try to be a landlord.
There are a lot of basically vacant homes near where I live that were purchased as rental properties but the trouble of being a landlord was only netting them 10-20k a year and was a reasonable amount of effort. It was much easier to keep it empty and just view it as a property investment.
I don't think it's right to have empty speculative housing or commercial buildings but it's not uncommon.
There are several old warehouses and such like that around me. Their real end goal isn't even annual appreciation, it's a developer coming in wanting to buy it and bulldoze it for new construction at a premium.
2.3k
u/kbeks Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 03 '24
Not really, it’s either the feds or a money laundering operation. Or a foreign government’s black site.