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This is an interesting idea... an empty home tax... What if, for real estate markets saturated with huge numbers of empty homes, a home tax was applied, and th

This is an interesting idea... an empty home tax... What if, for real estate markets saturated with huge numbers of empty homes, a home tax was applied, and the proceeds of this home tax were then directly used to fund cheap/free (depending on if they had an income or not) housing for the homeless?

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Why? What you are suggesting is straight up theft. Anyone should be able to buy as many properties as they want and keep it empty or live in them? What the govt needs to do is build shelters and add beds. That’s the extent of public charity. Not handing out homes by penalizing those who managed to create value. The only penalisation for empty homes should be upon foreigners buying homes and keeping it empty. Property taxes for foreign owned real estate ought to be higher as it exists at the cost of excluding local population from housing. It should be punitively high so foreign investment isn’t playing speculative games on real estate.
- Twixes 6y ago
  That's not theft, just policy. The state is exactly what enforces the concept of property (private, public, or otherwise), if there's popular support for the state to incentivize private property owners to act in the interest of the population, then it's just another policy. It can work or not, but certainly no citizen is entitled to real estate speculation being hassle-free.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Ok.