Empty homes now for all to see

DANIEL COX thinks the housing shortage is a myth and he has a map to prove it.

An anaesthetist by day, he has started a Wikipedia-style website that allows anyone to upload onto a map the locations of empty houses, vacant lots and disused buildings anywhere in Australia.

"My interest started when the papers were saying rents were going through the roof but where I lived in Blakehurst, there was at least one empty house in every street," Dr Cox said yesterday.

"I suppose it's a tiny bit subversive but whenever I say to people that there are so many empty houses they immediately say, 'Where are they?' Now I can show them."

His site, bubblepedia.net.au, has a maps section and an image gallery so readers can send in pictures of the buildings they believe are going to waste.

Users register and use Google Maps to find the co-ordinates of the empty building they have found, and upload it directly.

In one month, 15 people have joined and six houses been added to the map but Dr Cox says he has dozens more locations that he will upload soon.

"Some of these buildings are houses like my grandfather's, which was lying vacant when he was in a nursing home," he said. "But others are there because overt speculators have bought them and wait.

"I think we are one of the only countries left that has negative gearing, which makes it cheaper for speculators to own properties than home owners."

Dr Cox's image gallery includes old homes and newly built developments that have been unoccupied for months.

"My wife said, 'Won't people be upset about their house being on there'? Maybe they will but aren't people upset about there allegedly being a rental crisis?

"If they feel frightened into putting tenants in then that's a good thing."

The Herald yesterday revealed there are more than 120,000 vacant residential dwellings in greater Sydney, a figure calculated at the last census.

The NSW president of the Property Council, Ken Morrison, said some buildings remain vacant while the owners await redevelopment approval.

However, most were too run down to be habitable.

"Vacant properties tend to be very much third-tier-quality building held by private owners who have some sort of other objective for the property than income yield," Mr Morrison said. "You just don't get perfectly tenantable apartments which are vacant."