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If I understand correctly, you're proposing to add a cost to owning the property, which will either raise the total expense or shift the value of the property f

• parkingrift 4y ago
  Not OP, and I doubt it will work, but the idea is to eliminate property investment and return homes exclusively to people who own them to live in them.
  • the_optimist 4y ago
    Maybe tax investment properties at an elevated rate? I'm all for home ownership, but the proposed policy doesn't seem compatible with owner-occupied home ownership.
    • rapind 4y ago
      Not sure if it’s the same in the states (but I suspect it is), but in Canada, if your primary residence doubles in value and you sell it, you don’t have to pay tax on that investment income. However you would pay tax on all other investment income (real estate or stocks etc.). This is an exception to the tax rule and it’s a significant factor behind house prices (artificially low interest rates, and supply being other causes). It actually became a “smart” investment to over leverage for a primary residence because it’s a tax free investment that outperformed interest rates and other taxed investments.
    • ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      It is compatible with that. It's not compatible wih the strange religious belief that homeowners should be handed free money from the government at the expense of everyone else, including their own children, for not doing anything socially useful. That's the root problem, but it'll take a while to fix, because people like getting free money at the expense of other people as long as there's enough hoops to jump through that they feel like they deserve it, even when they don't, and enough hoops for them to not click that they are everybody else's "other people" and probably losing on the deal overall.
    • monknomo 4y ago
      In expensive areas (ie, cities that are popular), it does not encourage single family construction. Rather, it includes packing as many units onto property as feasible. That doesn't preclude ownership - condos and co-ops work as well as apartments. Out in the boonies a land value tax wouldn't discourage single family, because the land is not valuable (in comparison to a city).
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• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Land value taxes are pretty widely supported by most economists. The Wikipedia article has a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
  • the_optimist 4y ago
    Sure there's an argument to tax real property, but the argument doesn't seem to attach to the policy goals of making housing available for ownership by prospective occupants.
    • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      Land value taxes make it much more expensive to have lots of land with relatively small amounts of building improvements (e.g. a single family home on an acre lot). They lead to increases in density (i.e. more housing) because there is stronger incentive to build more living units on smaller pieces of land.
• Server6 4y ago
  No. Proposal is to add a cost to owning multiple properties.
  • the_optimist 4y ago
    This at least makes some sense. There are, for example, a large number of properties owned by foreign investors and domestic owners who own multiple homes. Bernie Sanders, for example, famously owns three homes. If these homes were more expensive for investors, specifically, that would dis-incentivize investment by non-occupants.
• Victerius 4y ago
  The idea is that we need to shift to a model where you lose money on the house. Where everyone loses money on their houses. After mortgage payments, insurance, property taxes, and repairs. This would make houses like every other good, like clothes and furniture, which are consumed for their inherent utility rather than to earn a financial return on investment.
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  • missedthecue 4y ago
    We have a model like that. It's called renting.
• malfist 4y ago
  I can't speak to GP, but fixing property taxes is critical to solving some of the land price issues in Kentucky. Currently, in kentucky, if you own a certain acreage (it's something low like 10) your property is taxed on it's agricultural value instead of it's real value. So you build a 2.5 million mcmansion on a 10 acre lot and you pay taxes on 10k in agricultural value instead of taxes on that 2.5 million. All the huge property speculators own large lots in the big cities and they won't subdivide and sell to individuals because if they subdivided they would have to pay taxes on what it's worth instead of some ridiculous "agricultural" value. One of the big builders here owns a 300 acre plot in the heart of the city. They pay taxes on like 50k agricultural value instead of the millions it's worth and drive up the prices of other lots because of it. They can speculate at no cost. Mind you, they sell the lots in .2 acre plots when they develop them and the new homeowner pays taxes on the full value of the plot + house.
• Ekaros 4y ago
  Land near city centres is more expensive. Thus tax of such land would be higher than let's say much farther away. This would put pressure to torn down a plot where there is single family and replace it with building with let's say 3-10 families. Now those new residents would pay one third or one tenth to live in same location.
• oneoff786 4y ago
  If you can make 10k revenue and 1k profit building a single luxury home or 100k revenue and 500 profit building a larger housing unit for many families, you’re incentivized to do the former. If you’re taxed on income you’re incentivized to do the former. If you’re taxed on the max possible value of the land, then your tax rate is based on the 100k revenue, which isn’t so bad if you actually make 100k but is really bad if you only made 10k. Shifting land to large housing use cases is one of the main ideas.