IT is still not known why half of the 4,000 homes listed as empty in the census were classed as unused, new data has revealed.
Amid a major shortage of housing which has helped push rent and property prices to record levels, the 2021 census found that 4,027 private dwellings were vacant on the day Islanders completed the survey.
New data issued yesterday drilled down further into the figures, revealing that 1,062 were vacant because they were being built or renovated, 235 were marked as a second or holiday home and 177 were between tenants. A further 430 were accounted for across several other categories, such as being for sale or recently occupied by someone who had since died.
But the status of the remaining 2,123 vacant properties is still ‘unknown’.
Housing Minister Deputy David Warr said he was looking at ways of bringing unused properties back into the market – such as ‘encouraging’ housing providers like Andium Homes to purchase and develop them.
And although he did not rule out the idea of an empty-property tax, he stressed that such a policy would be ‘difficult’ to introduce without the necessary information.
He acknowledged that some of the new figures – such as the 84 listings of empty staff accommodation – were ‘disappointing’.
‘We really need to be drilling down into [the data] more than we have done,’ he added, noting that the true number of unused properties was estimated to be anywhere between 300 and 800.
Commenting on the methods that could bring vacant accommodation back into use – such as an empty-property tax – he said: ‘Clearly, when the data is partial, making decisions on whether to tax somebody, for example, is difficult without knowing the size of the problem and what the consequences might be.’
He said that ‘encouraging’ the purchase and development of empty homes by housing providers such as Andium Homes was among the solutions being considered but that ‘any strategy that we use has to be very tactical’.
The minister added: ‘It’s the people at the bottom of the ladder who are really feeling the brunt of it.
‘We recognise that there will be people who will never be able to own a home, but we need to look at every possible way – whether it be through shared ownership or other methods – to get people onto the housing ladder and get people to aspire to home ownership.’
Deputy Warr, who was elected in June and appointed Housing Minister the following month, said: ‘It has been a massive learning curve in terms of understanding the levers of government, how much I can influence and how much is [affected by] market conditions.’
