What is the value in an empty home? A perspective from Action on Empty Homes and the Global Empty Homes Network

We face a global crisis of housing vacancy: more and more homes are being left to stand empty, whether as part of speculative investment practices or as the fallout of spatial shifts in capital and production. At the same time, access to safe and affordable housing is becoming increasingly scarce. Addressing the contradicting vacancy and scarcity of housing is among the core aims of the Global Empty Homes Network (GEHN), a consortium of advocates and researchers formed in 2021 by the English campaigning charity Action on Empty Homes. Examining the empty homes crisis through a global lens helps to link together analysis of global economic structures with understanding of the diverse ways in which value is generated in empty homes around the world. This article provides an overview of GEHN’s main areas of work, attending to key themes such as real estate speculation, rural depopulation, value and commodification, data quality, and campaigns against empty homes.