I don't think it's much more complicated than that. If you own a "rent-stabilized" apartment there's going to be a very low limit to the amount of money you're willing to spend to keep it habitable. If it needs a lot of money to make it legal to rent out, you're just going to leave it vacant. You don't really have a choice.

> And the reasons why they are vacant is much more complex "because city regulations on rents make them unprofitable to rent out".

Is it actually more complex than that? If the regulation that makes it unprofitable to rent them out is rent control, that's still an accurate statement of why they're not being rented out.

google prompt: "how many unoccupied apartments in nyc"

Scroll down a bit and read the section: "Key Causes of Vacancies"

I genuinely can not understand how anyone with basic knowledge of economics could believe that government intervention is not responsible for the majority of rent price increases

The market, left to its own, will keep building because someone will see the prices people are willing to pay and think “I want in on that” but then the government comes in and blocks them from building. No building = supply lower than demand which always equals higher costs

Further, It would only have taken you one 5 second search to see the ways government regulations can cause unoccupied apartments

https://www.google.com/search?q=in+what+ways+can+government+...

That's because you inserted the word "all" which was quite absent from what I wrote.

Please try again.

P.S. google "how many unoccupied apartments in nyc"

> all unoccupied apartments in a market

Which market are you thinking of?