Reply to More profitable for DC landlords to "sit" on empty storefronts than rent at market rate??

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just googled this question and there are lots of reasons, none of which seem to be generating tax losses. While tax losses are not idea, because you cannot recoup 100% of the loss and therefore you still lose money, it may provide at least some perverse incentive in that it reduces your losses that allows you to hold to a vacant storefront with the hope of getting a higher rent on a long-term tenant in the future.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/i-always-wonder-why-retail-storefronts-sit-empty-why-dont-they-just-cut-the-rent/2017/06/06/9c43e074-4ac4-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html[/quote]

I saw the same article... I wonder if this is the same idea. I wonder why the Mayor + Council wouldn't go after perverse incentives. If you have folks willing to pay some set rental rate -let's not be socialist, something really decent, a high bar, and you hold out, increasins penalties as time passes? We've all seen them....those prime properties empty for years. Someone is somehow benefitting from that as opposed to simply operating it as an ongoing retail property at a decent rent.[/quote]
They can use the tax code to increase tax on vacant commercial real estate. However, that may also lead to suboptimal outcomes. I think most people don’t mind if a storefront is vacant for 6 months to a year if it means that the next tenant is an Apple Store or something. Instead of having an endless parade of pop up Halloween costume stores, Christmas decoration stores, etc.[/quote]

Yes, but what's happened a lot is decent restaurants or fixtures like hardware stores are "run out"by rising rent, refusal to maintain the property on the part of the landlord, or both - and then the property sits empty for much more than 6 mo a year. An example is the Cafe Deluxe site on Wisconsin Ave near cathedral Commons...it's been empty for what, 3-4 years? They are just getting something in now.[/quote]

+1. This is exactly the problem. It's bad for the community to lose desirable businesses just because landlords want more, more, more so they blight the neighborhood. We need updated tax code to incentive keeping commercial sites rented. [/quote]

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