6 ms·

> Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. There are other kind of

by kartan 10y ago

> Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income people can afford and you don't need any low income housing. There are other kind of problems like buy-to-leave (http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave). In that scenario the amount of housing to build to get to a point that it is affordable is a lot higher than it should be. > subsidizing construction If you mean state owned properties. I agree on that. Having low rent housing competing in the market bring prices down. But the number should be significant enough. Otherwise it just becomes a lottery where a few win but has not broader impact in the market.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> There are other kind of problems like buy-to-leave (http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave). In that scenario the amount of housing to build to get to a point that it is affordable is a lot higher than it should be. Not if you publicly announce your intentions ahead of time. Then people have no incentive to do that because the expectation will be for housing prices to decline and the investment to lose value. > If you mean state owned properties. I mean giving subsidies to builders who create new market rate housing. Although another major problem is zoning regulations that prevent new housing from being constructed regardless of financing.
- spiffage 10y ago
  Subsidies would be mostly unnecessary. Merely allowing the housing to get built would be a gigantic improvement.
efaref 10y ago
The solution to buy-to-leave is surely extremely high taxation on properties left empty (and I'm talking "10% of market value" levels of taxation, enough to obliterate any possible returns on investment).
- simonh 10y ago
  That would be either unreasonably punitive or easy to avoid. Properties needing renovation or structural work can't reasonably be penalised for not being occupied, so owners would simply arrange for unoccupied buildings to be permanently having work done on them. I'm sure there are plenty of builders that would help them out for moderate fees. I'm sure there are other ways round something like this too.
  - Swizec 10y ago
    Or you can just keep the taxes on unoccupied properties and people will make sure they get fixed up quickly. You'd be surprised how quickly and efficiently work gets done when penalties for lateness are high enough.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    That's fairly easily dealt with. Require it be occupied for more than 6 months of the year, otherwise 1% (or 0.5%, whatever) of market value per month unoccupied. 80% of construction costs can be subtracted from any unoccupied housing fees applied. Any fudging on the construction fees paid/received is tax fraud on one or both parties. I really like this idea, except that "market value" is vague, and would require a bit of work to determine accurately. Maybe the best you could do would be to have a by-block square footage to value chart to be used for these purposes (and you would want a definitive source anyways, to prevent gaming the market value side). This could also help quite a bit with the property owned in New York as a way to launder money[1]. 1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/27/479717380/episode-703-how-to-hide-a-million-dollars-in-plain-sight http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/27/479717380/episo...
    - eru 10y ago
      It seems like a cute solution. But it's a bit unnecessary, and complicated. Ie you probably would want to tax under-occupation as well. (Otherwise you just declare a bunch of apartments as a single unit, and have a single dude check in every once in awhile. They did that in Britain, because of different legal treatment of trespassing between empty and `occupied' buildings.) But how do you define under-occupation? Where do you draw the line? Just use a land tax. It's simpler and harder to evade.

by kartan 10y ago

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> There are other kind of problems like buy-to-leave (http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Buy_to_leave). In that scenario the amount of housing to build to get to a point that it is affordable is a lot higher than it should be. Not if you publicly announce your intentions ahead of time. Then people have no incentive to do that because the expectation will be for housing prices to decline and the investment to lose value. > If you mean state owned properties. I mean giving subsidies to builders who create new market rate housing. Although another major problem is zoning regulations that prevent new housing from being constructed regardless of financing.

spiffage 10y ago
Subsidies would be mostly unnecessary. Merely allowing the housing to get built would be a gigantic improvement.

efaref 10y ago

The solution to buy-to-leave is surely extremely high taxation on properties left empty (and I'm talking "10% of market value" levels of taxation, enough to obliterate any possible returns on investment).

simonh 10y ago
That would be either unreasonably punitive or easy to avoid. Properties needing renovation or structural work can't reasonably be penalised for not being occupied, so owners would simply arrange for unoccupied buildings to be permanently having work done on them. I'm sure there are plenty of builders that would help them out for moderate fees. I'm sure there are other ways round something like this too.
- Swizec 10y ago
  Or you can just keep the taxes on unoccupied properties and people will make sure they get fixed up quickly. You'd be surprised how quickly and efficiently work gets done when penalties for lateness are high enough.
- kbenson 10y ago
  That's fairly easily dealt with. Require it be occupied for more than 6 months of the year, otherwise 1% (or 0.5%, whatever) of market value per month unoccupied. 80% of construction costs can be subtracted from any unoccupied housing fees applied. Any fudging on the construction fees paid/received is tax fraud on one or both parties. I really like this idea, except that "market value" is vague, and would require a bit of work to determine accurately. Maybe the best you could do would be to have a by-block square footage to value chart to be used for these purposes (and you would want a definitive source anyways, to prevent gaming the market value side). This could also help quite a bit with the property owned in New York as a way to launder money[1]. 1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/27/479717380/episode-703-how-to-hide-a-million-dollars-in-plain-sight http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/27/479717380/episo...
  - eru 10y ago
    It seems like a cute solution. But it's a bit unnecessary, and complicated. Ie you probably would want to tax under-occupation as well. (Otherwise you just declare a bunch of apartments as a single unit, and have a single dude check in every once in awhile. They did that in Britain, because of different legal treatment of trespassing between empty and `occupied' buildings.) But how do you define under-occupation? Where do you draw the line? Just use a land tax. It's simpler and harder to evade.