I’m just curious as to why houses in London for example, are left to rot and decay and stay empty whilst the owners live abroad and actually have no intention of doing anything with the house.
It could be rented out cheaply but no it’s seen as a status symbol instead
It may be an extreme example (or maybe not for London), but I remember reading about an Arab sheikh who lives full-time in the Middle East, but who owns/long-term rents an ultra-prime underground parking space in Knightsbridge, in which he keeps a Rolls Royce (IIRC - or another very expensive car). He hasn't been to London in 20 years or more. I'm guessing that he probably has a property or two as well, and likely the same set-up in New York, Tokyo, Sydney etc.
For some, it's undoubtedly a status symbol; for others, they're so phenomenally rich that the cost doesn't even register with them and no amount of extra tax would alter their decisions in any way. You read of billionaires who, if they dropped a $100 bill, they would earn ten or a hundred times that amount back in the time it took them to bend down and pick it up. If you could have a second home in Rio or on the Algarve - just in case you might want to use it at any time - for the equivalent of a penny a month, would you turn it down? Honestly? Would everybody you know? Yes, you can hire one at any time, but it won't be your exact personal dream place; nor may it be available at any time you might want it.
I'm not a second home owner - have often thought how lovely it would be to have a home in our favourite coastal town to use for a number of weeks each year and then rent out for the rest, but there's no way at all we could ever afford that, so it's irrelevant to us.
Although not many second-home-owners are as rich as the abovementioned sheikh, I think that, for those who are extremely wealthy, the comparisons between second homes, second cars, way more pasta than you need are not totally ludicrous. It follows that, the better off you are, the more expensive an option you will likely want. And then, a second one is the logical next step. Then a third.
Unless we're on the breadline, any of us might need another tin or two of beans, packet of rice, whatever; but we don't just buy the one we need, we buy a number and stock up. Families that could manage with one car but can easily afford more will rarely just stop at the one. If you have hundreds of thousands in your bank account, if not millions, what's the incentive to have it in the first place if you can't spend it - and an extra four-pack of beans from Asda is probably not going to cut it.
Maybe there's a bigger picture in that, rather than dictate how many of something people can buy, we should restrict how much money they can amass instead. That wouldn't be very popular - it wasn't in the days of 90+% tax rates. Is it illiberal to do this? Would it drive the wealthy (and their taxes - if they don't avoid them) abroad? Is it more liberal to let people amass as much as they can, but put strict restrictions on what they can actually spend it on? Is it more immoral to have a three-bed cottage in Stevenage and another in St Ives than a single immense palace occupying the grounds that could otherwise accommodate 100 normal houses?
So many potential rambling questions - I certainly don't know the answers myself.