# Housing crisis: more than 200,000 homes in England lie empty (The Guardian, 20 Apr 2017) * **Housing crisis: more than 200,000 homes in England lie empty** * By Phillip Inmann. Published in the Guardian on 20 April 2017 * * **Summary**: * "**More than 200,000 homes in England with a total value of £43bn were empty for at least six months during 2016** despite the desperate shortage of properties to rent and buy. * According to **official figures,** **Birmingham** was the worst affected city outside **London** with 4,397 empty homes worth an estimated £956m, followed by **Bradford** and **Liverpool**. * The wealthy borough of Kensington and Chelsea was the worst performer in London as super-rich owners rejected renting them out or selling up in favour of leaving their properties lying idle. * The royal borough had 1,399 empty homes worth £664m, compared with second-placed Croydon, which had 1,216 empty homes worth £577m. Across London there were 19,845 homes sitting idle for over six months in 2016, which amounted to £9.4bn worth of property, based on the average price in London of £474,704. * In response squatters groups have sought to occupy empty homes, with one group in January [taking over a £15m central London property](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/27/squatters-open-oligarchs-empty-london-property-as-homeless-shelter) purchased by a Russian oligarch in 2014 to open it as a homeless shelter." * **Keywords**: UK, taxes, vacant property, empty dwelling, local councils, big landlords --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://housing-base.journalismarena.eu/empty-homes/media-reports/housing-crisis-more-than-200-000-homes-in-england-lie-empty-the-guardian-20-apr-2017.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.