There are 1.5 million empty properties in California.
Posted by On with Kara Swisher, Checked
- Sources
- 2 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 30%
On with Kara SwisherAug 10, 2026
None of the sources gives a statewide count of 1.5 million empty properties. The post hedged the figure as "by one estimate," which the extracted claim dropped. The only statewide empty-home figure is 691,343 totally empty homes for 2013-2017 from a 2019 article, a different period and measure, so it is not a direct contradiction.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… Well, for example, there's a really interesting proposal from down near San Diego, a disused military base to use as a shelter. There's, so we have a million and a half empty properties by one estimate in California. So the idea that we can't provide shelter, I mean, look, the numbers, what is it, 188,000, something like that? It's large, but it's not impossible to imagine that we can, we can do that. …
On with Kara Swisher · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Context. The 2019 Sightline article cites Census estimates of 691,343 totally empty homes in California for 2013-2017, about half the claimed figure, but for a different period and definition.[2]
Context. The 2026 Census vacancy report gives national and county-level vacancy counts for 2024, including Los Angeles County's 1.6 million total homes, but no statewide count of empty properties.[1]
Context. The post attributed the 1.5 million figure to "one estimate" and the extracted claim omitted that qualifier, so the claim is stated more flatly than the speaker's words.
Sources
2 sources: 1 primary, 1 not rated
- 1Homeowner and Rental Vacancies in the American ...www2.census.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 2California Homeowners Have 20 Uninhabited Bedrooms for Every ...sightline.org · not rated · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
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