After that irritating interruption from a hack attack, we’re back.

Meanwhile a lot of other people have gone to live somewhere else while they leave houses here empty.  According to this article over at BNN the number of vacant homes in Vancouver has nearly doubled since 2001:

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who has criticized some of Mr. Yan’s tracking of foreign home ownership in his city, said this latest study reinforces his government’s commitment to penalizing those who leave properties vacant.

“Seeing data that demonstrates there may be even more underutilized homes than BC Hydro suggests gives us more reason to aggressively move on the empty homes tax,” Mr. Robertson told The Globe and Mail Tuesday.

“We certainly hear, anecdotally, concerns about empty homes in various neighbourhoods, and now the body of evidence is building, so that helps.”

The B.C. government passed legislation in the summer allowing Vancouver to impose a tax on empty homes, which the city argues are taking up housing that could be rented out.

The province has said it will consider similar requests from other cities.

Read the full article here.