New York’s Vacant Buildings May Soon Serve A Noble Purpose

If you're in the market for a place to live right now, you're probably getting tired of bashing your head into a wall. Rent seems to be getting more expensive day by day, and places to live are becoming few and far between.

Upstate New York is finally looking into a solution, and one that has a proven track record...

Get our free mobile app

Revitalizing the Housing Market

How do you drop rent prices? Increase the supply, and that's exactly what the State of New York plans to do. Post-COVID, many businesses left their offices in favor of remote work, leaving their buildings unused. Reports show that around 16% to 28% of office buildings in New York downtowns are empty.

So, the state is offering these businesses a nice incentive if they agree to convert their old, unused buildings into residential complexes, offering steady, lower-priced housing to those who need it. But how do you convince these businesses to give up their holdings?

The Incentive

In order to push businesses to let go of these buildings, the state is offering a 10% Tax Credit, which those businesses could combine with the Historic Tax Credit many of them are already taking part in.

This makes the move much easier. If there's one thing I know about big business, they love their tax cuts. By implementing this bill, the Senate would be helping both sides of the arrangement drastically, and could revitalize older cities and towns across New York State by simply making them available to those who want to move there.