Why 15 million vacant homes won’t solve the housing crisis

What cities get right and wrong about tackling empty houses.

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September 24, 2025 8:05am EDT

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The US has a housing crisis, and it also has almost 15 million vacant homes. It seems like the solution should be simple — but it isn’t, writes Rachel Cohen Booth.

As Rachel explains, many of those vacant homes aren’t permanently vacant; others are, but require real work from cities to be revived. And yet others are being held as investment properties. There are lessons to be learned here in how cities have handled vacant properties, but ultimately, there’s no one silver bullet — and no substitute for simply building more homes.

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—Angela Chen, senior politics, policy, and ideas editor