Tax homes based on how many you own, and how many are vacant. Allow two homes at a regular rate; Enough for a summer and winter home. Then ratchet tax rates up as the person buys more.
And if the third, fourth, fifth, etc home sits vacant for more than a few months out of the year? The tax rate goes up even more, so giant corporations can’t just buy entire neighborhoods and sit on them to remove them from the market and increase property values for the other homes they own across town. Because that’s what’s happening now; Giant corps are buying homes and letting them sit vacant, just to remove them from the market so they can charge higher rates elsewhere. Allow a few months of grace for renovations and finding tenants… But after a ~3 month grace period, that tax rate skyrockets.
And then take the revenue from these increased taxes, and use them to fund First Time Homebuyer programs, so home ownership becomes more available to the people who are renting. Incentivize the corporations to actually flip the houses and resell or rent them, instead of just sitting on them.
I propose exempting high-density apartment and condo buildings from the taxes. Developers may be building those residences for their own cynical profit motives, but it does happen to greatly benefit society.
Alternate take: If we actually implemented my above plan, you wouldn’t need to be stupidly rich to own two homes. Home prices would be reasonable, because there wouldn’t be giant corporations hoarding all of the real estate.
We have over two vacant houses for every single homeless person in the country. We could give every single homeless person a house, and still have plenty to act as summer cabins. And that’s before you even factor in the fact that the market would be flooded with houses (at least in the short term) from corporations trying to avoid the increased taxes.
Solution build excess housing at a loss, intentionally until real estate prices go down.
I like that idea, but it’d have to come with some mechanism to prevent parasites from buying a bunch of them up and renting them out.
fuck if I know what such a mechanism would look like though…
Severely impede sale of all houses purchased by people who cannot strongly demonstrate they intend to live in them.
Government Owned Social Housing Program
Tax homes based on how many you own, and how many are vacant. Allow two homes at a regular rate; Enough for a summer and winter home. Then ratchet tax rates up as the person buys more.
And if the third, fourth, fifth, etc home sits vacant for more than a few months out of the year? The tax rate goes up even more, so giant corporations can’t just buy entire neighborhoods and sit on them to remove them from the market and increase property values for the other homes they own across town. Because that’s what’s happening now; Giant corps are buying homes and letting them sit vacant, just to remove them from the market so they can charge higher rates elsewhere. Allow a few months of grace for renovations and finding tenants… But after a ~3 month grace period, that tax rate skyrockets.
And then take the revenue from these increased taxes, and use them to fund First Time Homebuyer programs, so home ownership becomes more available to the people who are renting. Incentivize the corporations to actually flip the houses and resell or rent them, instead of just sitting on them.
I propose exempting high-density apartment and condo buildings from the taxes. Developers may be building those residences for their own cynical profit motives, but it does happen to greatly benefit society.
Nobody needs a summer and winter home tax the living shit out of rich fuckers with 2
Alternate take: If we actually implemented my above plan, you wouldn’t need to be stupidly rich to own two homes. Home prices would be reasonable, because there wouldn’t be giant corporations hoarding all of the real estate.
We have over two vacant houses for every single homeless person in the country. We could give every single homeless person a house, and still have plenty to act as summer cabins. And that’s before you even factor in the fact that the market would be flooded with houses (at least in the short term) from corporations trying to avoid the increased taxes.
Rent control tied to bottom quintile income. Everyone should be able to afford a home. If construction companies can’t afford to build homes at that cost, look at their material and labor costs; in China they invest in education and have state-run steel and concrete companies to keep the private ones competitive. It costs them avg ~50K to make a 900 sqft 2bd house or apartment in the major cities. Much less elsewhere.