Benefit of long term vacancies?
One person in my area owns a dozen highly valuable commercial main street properties.  He has kept these vacant for years.  Why on earth wouldn't he want to give out short-term leases and make some money?
[{"id": "d1tpwwz", "text": "Maybe to avoid taxes. ", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "d1twsfj", "text": "Land banking. ", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "d1wpp4q", "text": "The likely situation here is that he owns them outright and is only paying for the taxes and a premium on insurance (since a vacant building costs more to insure). Could possibly have been a 1031 exchange. \n\nHe is possibly looking for A+ tenants with name recognition and great financials who want to take on a long term lease. \n\nIf he does short term lease deals then he risking his property's image. The short term tenant can damage the property, they may not move out and he will have to go through a costly eviction process, people in the market will see the constant churn of tenants and wonder if something is wrong with the property, or a long term prospect may come around during the short term lease and if he can't move them or terminate the lease the long term tenant will move on to another option.  \n\nLastly, as long as he is marketing the property, he can write off the rental losses. ", "replies": [{"id": "d1xbkqx", "text": "Thank you, awesome reply!", "replies": [], "depth": 2}, {"id": "d21htfu", "text": "Is there any where that I can read up on that? I had no idea you could do that. ", "replies": [{"id": "d24qpob", "text": "It's not as simple as \"I lost this much in possible rents, so I can write of that amount.\" In fact it is very complicated, and almost always triggers a red flag when filing. \n\nI'm not a CPA, but [here's](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-mssp/pal.pdf) a good place to start.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]