Chief executive David Ireland said that of these, it was believed 290,000 were in England, although different calculation methods meant the statistics were subject to uncertainty.
He commented that while 840,000 homes were empty at any one time, many of these were short-term situations before a new resident moved in.
On the other hand, he added: “If a property is empty for six months or more it’s likely that something’s not quite right. There aren’t many reasons why you would need to leave a property empty for six months.”
The Empty Homes Agency figures for England are similar to the figure quoted by Halifax.
In the fourth annual Halifax Survey of Empty Homes, the figures is stated as 288,763, which represents 1.6 per cent of private housing stock.
However, the survey found, the number of long-term empty homes has fallen by 6 per cent in the past three years.
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