4 ms·

> For new home buyers lower prices is great Increases taxes to "lower" the price doesn't lower the total cost of ownership, it just hides it by reducing the po

• elyobo 9y ago
  > Increases taxes to "lower" the price doesn't lower the total cost of ownership, it just hides it by reducing the potential gains (which are _priced into_ the sale price). That is true, but you're missing the point. Given that the reduction in potential gains means that speculators will (to some extent) exit the market this means that demand and therefore prices will drop further. Additionally non-investors cannot typically realise their "gains" (they don't exit the market to cash them in, they move to other houses which have had similar gains and so have no net gain) and so they're useless to them. Losing those gains doesn't harm them, but the lower price does help them. I wonder how society functions at all, with all of the poorly "thought" out criticisms of solutions that I see...