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The great Austrian housing mystery!



A view - not of the Austrian alps!

Some of the ‘we must build more houses’ supporters cite Austria as an example of where lots of dwellings have been built.  In 2021 the housing census revealed that there were 4,909,410 dwellings, of which 4,015,886 dwellings were listed as main residences with households (81.8%), 240,500 were secondary residences (4.9%) and 653,000 dwellings (13.3%), did not have any residents registered.
 
In total, 18.2% of dwellings were not used as main residences that’s a lot!
 
So what are the 653,000 dwellings used for?
“No one is registered in almost every seventh dwelling. The reasons for this are very different and range from owner-occupation or renting out holiday apartments to renovation activities and vacancies before new rentals or sales,” says Tobias Thomas, Director General of Statistics Austria. [
 
Statistics Austria, 2023, ‘Almost every seventh dwelling without residence registration’, Press release: 13 160-188/23 ].
 
“Some are empty, some are holiday lets, some will be sold soon, some have to be renovated and so on.” [Statistics Austria, perr comm]. 
 
What does it mean?
It looks as if Austria has a lot of dwellings which are not used for housing people or are second homes and lie empty for various reasons. The implication is that more building is not required and that the surplus in relation to housing need is a bit of an illusion. Empty properties are a misuse of resources.
 
The ‘build more houses' supporters should not use Austria (or France for that matter), as exemplars of good housing policy. And the reason for cheaper rents? Austria has rent controls.
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