Access to housing has become a luxury for many. While thousands of apartments remain empty in the hands of large holders, families search for impossible alternatives. The recipe is clear: multiply the IBI by ten for those unoccupied properties. There is no need to invent anything new, only political will. But that will has been conspicuously absent for decades.
How an algorithm could detect empty homes 🤖
A system cross-referencing municipal data with water and electricity consumption would allow identifying properties with no real use. By combining census records and meter readings over six months, a basic machine learning model would classify properties as vacant with 90% accuracy. The technology already exists, is cheap, and is applied in cities like Paris. The problem is not technical; it is political.
The IBI x10: the favorite scarecrow of city councils 💸
Of course, applying this measure would be a drama: property owners would have to rent at reasonable prices or sell. A real chaos for those who use apartments as portfolio decoration. But since politicians do not rent nor have trouble paying their mortgage, the issue matters to them as much as a fish cares about a bicycle. So we will keep seeing balconies with dried-up flowerpots and doors that never open.