7 ms·

Imagine if instead of constantly building horrific low-income housing projects to (fruitlessly) retroactively "solve" the problem of middle and lower-class peop

Imagine if instead of constantly building horrific low-income housing projects to (fruitlessly) retroactively "solve" the problem of middle and lower-class people being unable to afford housing in major metropolitan areas, we didn't poison the market in the first place by treating housing as foreign investment vehicles.

einhverfr 7y ago
Yeah. I am in favor of a high tax on absentee ownership of real estate. Deduct the property where you live and where you work. Everything else gets taxed heavily.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  But then either you can afford to buy your home or you have to live on the street...
  - sprafa 7y ago
    Absentee ownership is not equal to renting it out.
  - einhverfr 7y ago
    We should exempt rent-to-own contracts. If the contract vests ownership over a 20 year period or less, then it should count as owned by both sides for the purposes of this tax proposal. Bonus, we reduce the influence of banks.
- petre 7y ago
  It's pointless. One can have multiple temporary residences. The Swiss have already solved this. You pay the same amount of tax regardless if you keep the property empty, live in it or rent it. It's calculated as a percentage of average rent in that area which gets updated with market prices every 6 months or so. They also have low VAT and corp taxes.
  - einhverfr 7y ago
    But the Swiss make you pay an income tax on rent you would have made if you had rented it. Land value taxes are probably better than that.
    - petre 7y ago
      Not really. One could graze cows on land, or run a casino.
einpoklum 7y ago
The key word in your comment is "we". "we" don't do that - the government does. And as you yourself indicate - they don't do so in the public interest, they do so in the investors' interest. Also - they shouldn't be a _domestic_ investment vehicle either.
AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
The cycle works like this: - we have people who live in subpar conditions - let's build some cheap houses and rent them at discount to those in need - actually not that cheap: why is that only rich people deserve to have a balcony? - within a decade the houses turn into a ghetto - oh, but there is a research which suggests if people actually owned the houses instead of just renting them, they would stop throwing garbage on the floors. So we sell these houses at discount. - goto step 1
- can3p 7y ago
  It doesn't always work like this. In the Netherlands you can find big parts of the cities built by housing corporations with people renting them for decades, yet very few of them you can define as ghettos
  - AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
    I don't know how you guys do it, but Netherlands keeps amazing me. An absolutely fantastic country.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  In New York, they were deliberately intended to become ghettos, or at best a place to sequester the city's poor. http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/politics/216905-the-lingering-effects-of-nyc-racist-city-planning http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/politics/216905-the-l... https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/nyregion/how-new-york-citys-coastline-became-home-to-the-poor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/nyregion/how-new-york-cit...
  - AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
    Sorry, I don't buy it. First, there are buses going to Long Island beaches (Jones Beach, specifically). Second, a place becomes a ghetto not because there's no nice park nearby. A district becomes a ghetto because people who live there deface the walls and throw garbage on the streets.
  - 7y ago

einhverfr 7y ago

Yeah. I am in favor of a high tax on absentee ownership of real estate. Deduct the property where you live and where you work. Everything else gets taxed heavily.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
But then either you can afford to buy your home or you have to live on the street...
- sprafa 7y ago
  Absentee ownership is not equal to renting it out.
- einhverfr 7y ago
  We should exempt rent-to-own contracts. If the contract vests ownership over a 20 year period or less, then it should count as owned by both sides for the purposes of this tax proposal. Bonus, we reduce the influence of banks.
petre 7y ago
It's pointless. One can have multiple temporary residences. The Swiss have already solved this. You pay the same amount of tax regardless if you keep the property empty, live in it or rent it. It's calculated as a percentage of average rent in that area which gets updated with market prices every 6 months or so. They also have low VAT and corp taxes.
- einhverfr 7y ago
  But the Swiss make you pay an income tax on rent you would have made if you had rented it. Land value taxes are probably better than that.
  - petre 7y ago
    Not really. One could graze cows on land, or run a casino.

einpoklum 7y ago

The key word in your comment is "we". "we" don't do that - the government does. And as you yourself indicate - they don't do so in the public interest, they do so in the investors' interest. Also - they shouldn't be a _domestic_ investment vehicle either.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago

The cycle works like this: - we have people who live in subpar conditions - let's build some cheap houses and rent them at discount to those in need - actually not that cheap: why is that only rich people deserve to have a balcony? - within a decade the houses turn into a ghetto - oh, but there is a research which suggests if people actually owned the houses instead of just renting them, they would stop throwing garbage on the floors. So we sell these houses at discount. - goto step 1

can3p 7y ago
It doesn't always work like this. In the Netherlands you can find big parts of the cities built by housing corporations with people renting them for decades, yet very few of them you can define as ghettos
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  I don't know how you guys do it, but Netherlands keeps amazing me. An absolutely fantastic country.
nerdponx 7y ago
In New York, they were deliberately intended to become ghettos, or at best a place to sequester the city's poor. http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/politics/216905-the-lingering-effects-of-nyc-racist-city-planning http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/politics/216905-the-l... https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/nyregion/how-new-york-citys-coastline-became-home-to-the-poor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/nyregion/how-new-york-cit...
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  Sorry, I don't buy it. First, there are buses going to Long Island beaches (Jones Beach, specifically). Second, a place becomes a ghetto not because there's no nice park nearby. A district becomes a ghetto because people who live there deface the walls and throw garbage on the streets.
- 7y ago