Read the article. This is a global thing, not US-specific.

    Los Angeles is planning to put a vacant homes tax on the ballot for 2022, in the face of a mounting homelessness crisis. Hong Kong officials are considering taxing condo developers to deter them from hoarding new units. Ireland is exploring its options. Barcelona has gone as far as threatening to seize landlords’ empty apartments — paying half of market value — and convert the units into affordable rentals. Paris tripled its tax on second homes in 2017.

But only one of those examples is something that’s actually been done. The others are future plans or threats or just ideas.

And also, in that example, it actually seems to have worked, just not as much as they hoped, so obviously total failure, right?