Put a hard stop to the purchasing of homes by corporations/businesses and people with no intention of living in them.
You should need proof of intention to live in the home within a reasonable amount of time after the purchase in order to make the sale. The flipping of homes for profit by those with cash and more money is a detriment to the market and the american dream for the rest of the population trying to get a foothold.
Rather than a hard stop, I think it would be a good idea to significantly increase taxes on real estate no one is actively living in, and use the proceeds to subsidize construction of new housing.
This seems to be the most reasonable. Disincentiivize multiple property ownership rather than outright ban it. The ones who can eat the cost will pay taxes and the rest will just bow out of the market.
But housing is a need and people will keep paying any price to not be homeless, this feels like it leads to massive corporations still owning all of them and paying large taxes they can eat short term and raise to massive prices of rent. Maybe they dump some stock but I’m just not sure it does much other than diversify smaller investors that used property for assets
this feels like it leads to massive corporations still owning all of them and paying large taxes
Then the taxes aren’t high enough. That’s an easy fix. It’s one of those times the state doesn’t want to optimise the rate for total tax earned but to make paying it for any length of time actually prohibitive. Make it so that they can’t possibly raise rents high enough to cover those taxes and they’ll understand quickly.
The other side of the equation is a bit harder, and that’s housing overstock: Companies will be sitting on housing they can’t rent out due to lack of demand for housing. One idea would be to allow them to lease homes out to municipalities for literally nothing but tax forgiveness and the municipalities can use that to house the left-over homeless, unemployed, etc. Call it a half write off. Oh those leases need sensible minimum durations, I’d say five years is a good start.
smaller investors that used property for assets
You can easily make smaller investors be hit significant less by it by scaling the tax to the number of vacant housing units. Own a second home you rent out and spend four months finding a renter you like? Fine, pay ten bucks. Do that to 1000 housing units? Pay 10000 bucks for each.
Yes, those kinds of rates are right-out financial violence. That’s the point: The state has to step in as the larger bully to keep the small ones in check to avert market failure.
Your argument falls flat once you remember that there is in fact plenty of homeless people and there will always be those who will choose not to pay irregardless of logic or desire of self preservation. And while yes, any privatization of housing isn’t really any good, but you don’t have to make it impossible for them to make money off of it. You just play their own logic against them and keep it just on the line where they will ultimately go for something else to profit off of other than housing as their returns and infinite growth will eventually lead them into microscopic margins so any variability becomes a threat to the bottom line.
Rather than a hard stop, I think it would be a good idea to significantly increase taxes on real estate no one is actively living in, and use the proceeds to subsidize construction of new housing.
An alternative is to replace property tax with a land tax. That way instead of penalizing people for building more housing, they are penalized for holding onto land that could be used to house more people (or whatever other use is in mind).
331.9 million (2021) US Population / ~142 million housing units in the United States (2021) = ~2.34 people average needed per dwelling to fully house everyone.
According to Statista: " The average American household consisted of 2.5 people in 2022. "
If people did not need vacation homes, and investment property… We appear to have enough housing for everyone already.
I’m working under the assumption hotels/motels are not included… there should be plenty of those to house people on vacation, and leaves plenty of room for the ultra wealthy to still have their vacation homes.
Put a hard stop to the purchasing of homes by corporations/businesses and people with no intention of living in them.
You should need proof of intention to live in the home within a reasonable amount of time after the purchase in order to make the sale. The flipping of homes for profit by those with cash and more money is a detriment to the market and the american dream for the rest of the population trying to get a foothold.
Rather than a hard stop, I think it would be a good idea to significantly increase taxes on real estate no one is actively living in, and use the proceeds to subsidize construction of new housing.
This seems to be the most reasonable. Disincentiivize multiple property ownership rather than outright ban it. The ones who can eat the cost will pay taxes and the rest will just bow out of the market.
But housing is a need and people will keep paying any price to not be homeless, this feels like it leads to massive corporations still owning all of them and paying large taxes they can eat short term and raise to massive prices of rent. Maybe they dump some stock but I’m just not sure it does much other than diversify smaller investors that used property for assets
Then the taxes aren’t high enough. That’s an easy fix. It’s one of those times the state doesn’t want to optimise the rate for total tax earned but to make paying it for any length of time actually prohibitive. Make it so that they can’t possibly raise rents high enough to cover those taxes and they’ll understand quickly.
The other side of the equation is a bit harder, and that’s housing overstock: Companies will be sitting on housing they can’t rent out due to lack of demand for housing. One idea would be to allow them to lease homes out to municipalities for literally nothing but tax forgiveness and the municipalities can use that to house the left-over homeless, unemployed, etc. Call it a half write off. Oh those leases need sensible minimum durations, I’d say five years is a good start.
You can easily make smaller investors be hit significant less by it by scaling the tax to the number of vacant housing units. Own a second home you rent out and spend four months finding a renter you like? Fine, pay ten bucks. Do that to 1000 housing units? Pay 10000 bucks for each.
Yes, those kinds of rates are right-out financial violence. That’s the point: The state has to step in as the larger bully to keep the small ones in check to avert market failure.
Your argument falls flat once you remember that there is in fact plenty of homeless people and there will always be those who will choose not to pay irregardless of logic or desire of self preservation. And while yes, any privatization of housing isn’t really any good, but you don’t have to make it impossible for them to make money off of it. You just play their own logic against them and keep it just on the line where they will ultimately go for something else to profit off of other than housing as their returns and infinite growth will eventually lead them into microscopic margins so any variability becomes a threat to the bottom line.
An alternative is to replace property tax with a land tax. That way instead of penalizing people for building more housing, they are penalized for holding onto land that could be used to house more people (or whatever other use is in mind).
331.9 million (2021) US Population / ~142 million housing units in the United States (2021) = ~2.34 people average needed per dwelling to fully house everyone.
According to Statista: " The average American household consisted of 2.5 people in 2022. "
If people did not need vacation homes, and investment property… We appear to have enough housing for everyone already.
I’m working under the assumption hotels/motels are not included… there should be plenty of those to house people on vacation, and leaves plenty of room for the ultra wealthy to still have their vacation homes.
Sources: Statista, US Census, Google
its maddening there are plenty of homes out there completely empty
well that doesn’t sound like free market capitalism!