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If you want help the people who do not own or do not want to own a home - and I agree that we should because i'm one of them, the government can: * Build more

If you want help the people who do not own or do not want to own a home - and I agree that we should because i'm one of them, the government can: * Build more homes (using compulsory purchase where necessary) * Raise council tax and make the owner pay for it (not the occupier) and use the proceeds to build more homes. * Eliminate mortgage interest tax deducations * Raise interest rates * Don't privatize the land registry like the Tories are trying to do. Eliminating tax deductions on solar panels will mainly just help the oil, coal and gas oligarchs trying to set us at each other's throats.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
I'm confused - how is 'hurt people who own property' the same as 'help people who do not'? Similarly, eliminating the solar deduction hurts folks with solar panels, not quite the same as helping oligarchs.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >I'm confused - how is 'hurt people who own property' the same as 'help people who do not'? Partly by helping reduce the systemic wealth transfer between property owners and non-property owners that is more colloquially known as "rent" and "asset price appreciation". >Similarly, eliminating the solar deduction hurts folks with solar panels, not quite the same as helping oligarchs. Things that make carbon based electricity generation more competitive and build in reliance upon the electric grid help the owners of those things. Do you not agree?
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > Partly by helping reduce the systemic wealth transfer between property owners and non-property owners that is more colloquially known as "rent". This works the opposite of the way most people think it does. Anything that makes property more expensive increases rents, because it discourages the creation of new housing, which keeps housing scarce and rents high, and prices more people out of self-ownership. The big caveat here being the abominable subsidies for loan interest, because they encourage people to bid up the price of land, which makes buying and creating housing more expensive rather than less, with the balance of the money going to the banks.
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      "Anything that makes property more expensive increases rents, because it discourages the creation of new housing" Increasing council tax discourages land hoarding which would actually free up more land for the creation of new housing. The supply of housing in the UK is not limited by how much builders want to build. It is limited by availability of land. Moreover, if coupled with heavy investment in council housing (the only thing in the past that has actually ever meaningfully added supply to the market), that would bring down rents a lot.
      - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
        Taxing land and using the money to subsidize housing construction has the potential to work, but you're probably better off with land value tax (or some entirely unrelated tax) than council tax in that context. The problem with council tax is that if you do the desired thing and build new housing, your taxes go up because now you have more property. You also don't really need the government to operate the buildings. Build them and sell them for cost, or just make it a tax deduction to do construction that increases the number of housing units on a lot. As long as it gets built it doesn't much matter who owns it, and then you don't have the local government in the property maintenance business for no real benefit.
blibble 10y ago
> Raise council tax and make the owner pay for it (not the occupier) and use the proceeds to build more homes. > Eliminate mortgage interest tax deducations how do these help? increasing landlord costs would result in them raising their rents to cover the difference > Raise interest rates this would result in lenders requiring higher deposits (the others make sense)
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >how do these help? increasing landlord costs would result in them raising their rents to cover the difference Actually, counter-intuitively, it would probably bring rents down. A lot of housing is now held on to like a bar of gold and not used - previously expected to just keeping increasing in value. These taxes would arrest that rise and potentially cause a drop. This would lead to a lot of spare housing being rented out in an attempt to recoup investment losses. Also, since it would push up costs for home owners it would make many of them bite the bullet and rent out a spare room to help with the mortgage repayments. Since investment in new property in the UK (we're not talking about rural Iowa here), is determined primarily by plots of land becoming available it's unlikely to throttle new building.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

I'm confused - how is 'hurt people who own property' the same as 'help people who do not'? Similarly, eliminating the solar deduction hurts folks with solar panels, not quite the same as helping oligarchs.

crdoconnor 10y ago
>I'm confused - how is 'hurt people who own property' the same as 'help people who do not'? Partly by helping reduce the systemic wealth transfer between property owners and non-property owners that is more colloquially known as "rent" and "asset price appreciation". >Similarly, eliminating the solar deduction hurts folks with solar panels, not quite the same as helping oligarchs. Things that make carbon based electricity generation more competitive and build in reliance upon the electric grid help the owners of those things. Do you not agree?
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > Partly by helping reduce the systemic wealth transfer between property owners and non-property owners that is more colloquially known as "rent". This works the opposite of the way most people think it does. Anything that makes property more expensive increases rents, because it discourages the creation of new housing, which keeps housing scarce and rents high, and prices more people out of self-ownership. The big caveat here being the abominable subsidies for loan interest, because they encourage people to bid up the price of land, which makes buying and creating housing more expensive rather than less, with the balance of the money going to the banks.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    "Anything that makes property more expensive increases rents, because it discourages the creation of new housing" Increasing council tax discourages land hoarding which would actually free up more land for the creation of new housing. The supply of housing in the UK is not limited by how much builders want to build. It is limited by availability of land. Moreover, if coupled with heavy investment in council housing (the only thing in the past that has actually ever meaningfully added supply to the market), that would bring down rents a lot.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      Taxing land and using the money to subsidize housing construction has the potential to work, but you're probably better off with land value tax (or some entirely unrelated tax) than council tax in that context. The problem with council tax is that if you do the desired thing and build new housing, your taxes go up because now you have more property. You also don't really need the government to operate the buildings. Build them and sell them for cost, or just make it a tax deduction to do construction that increases the number of housing units on a lot. As long as it gets built it doesn't much matter who owns it, and then you don't have the local government in the property maintenance business for no real benefit.

blibble 10y ago

> Raise council tax and make the owner pay for it (not the occupier) and use the proceeds to build more homes. > Eliminate mortgage interest tax deducations how do these help? increasing landlord costs would result in them raising their rents to cover the difference > Raise interest rates this would result in lenders requiring higher deposits (the others make sense)

crdoconnor 10y ago
>how do these help? increasing landlord costs would result in them raising their rents to cover the difference Actually, counter-intuitively, it would probably bring rents down. A lot of housing is now held on to like a bar of gold and not used - previously expected to just keeping increasing in value. These taxes would arrest that rise and potentially cause a drop. This would lead to a lot of spare housing being rented out in an attempt to recoup investment losses. Also, since it would push up costs for home owners it would make many of them bite the bullet and rent out a spare room to help with the mortgage repayments. Since investment in new property in the UK (we're not talking about rural Iowa here), is determined primarily by plots of land becoming available it's unlikely to throttle new building.