Millages and property tax index off of real estate values, and abandoned homes are a drag on municipal revenues. Lower real estate values cause less income.
Guess what?
An abandoned home still has water lines and power lines running across the property in easements, and those line still have to be maintained even when there is no tax paying occupant.
We are ten years over built and this will not ease any time soon.
Did you never bother to read the housing bubble threads in years gone by? Where this was going to go was accurately explained, and now we are there.
And if local governments can’t get their money, ultimately they will get it from Uncle Sugar.