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"" “Starter” homes are a magnet for institutional investors. "" Exactly why a legal household (family, single, etc) living in a home 35% or more of the year sh

"" “Starter” homes are a magnet for institutional investors. "" Exactly why a legal household (family, single, etc) living in a home 35% or more of the year should be taxed at a lesser rate and anyone 'investing' in rentals of any sort (not living there themselves) should be _punishingly_ taxed.

Falkon1313 4y ago
>anyone 'investing' in rentals of any sort (not living there themselves) should be _punishingly_ taxed At which point they raise the rent to cover those taxes, thus the people punished are the renters. Mostly people who already can't to afford to buy or the transaction costs of buying and then selling again short-term. That would be a very regressive tax. And on top of that, it discourages developing rentals and making them available, even further exacerbating the housing supply problems and making life more difficult for less-wealthy people (or really anyone who is not a homeowner).
- kcplate 4y ago
  > At which point they raise the rent to cover those taxes, thus the people punished are the renters. Why is it that people don’t seem to grasp this?
kubb 4y ago
Yeah, it's such an obvious way to balance the pressure on housing prices and nobody wants to do that.
- courgette 4y ago
  Nobody being? Some people are all about that. I'm a ( relatively new ) US citizen and I'm all about that type of taxes. I've seen what taxes can do in other part of the word, and that my go-to solution for all issue in this country. Redistribution. Pretty sure my enthusiasm will be tempered with time :) More seriously, highly touristy place impacted by AirBB landlord snatching the whole housing market would be receptive, too.
courgette 4y ago
I've seen countries where that is implemented, having a second home trigger a new set of properties taxes. it's often dubbed "vacation home taxes", it affects any second, third or N property you own after the first one
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Not fundamentally opposed to this, but who collects those taxes? the state? federal? locality? if I have a cottage in the next state, when I file and if I have to pay, does that go to the other state?
  - courgette 4y ago
    Why does that have to be a question for every semi hard topic? The US have to choose, are you a federation of states. EU style, or a country? I had a actual country in mind, where tax are collected on a national level. ( note my use of national, not federal ) I get your question and it’s a valid one. Sorry to be grumpy. I’m just tired of “state” being a constant push back to every single topic. I think it was a powerful idea to quickly implement the take over of the continent, but the usefulness might start to stretch.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> anyone 'investing' in rentals of any sort (not living there themselves) should be _punishingly_ taxed Agree with the first, not the second. It not only disincentivises development, it also promotes in-the-family cronyism that corrodes the connection between legal ownership and control. A tax differential which feeds a resident-owner subsidy is more than enough.
- jackcosgrove 4y ago
  I think a distinction should also be made between single family homes as rentals and multifamily properties as rentals. The latter are purpose-built to be rented out, and that is a necessary use.
panick21_ 4y ago
If you are going to fiddle around with taxes, simply moving to a land tax would do a 1000x more then some marginal tax changes. The reality is a society isn't richer just because people own home. I much rather live in a society with low ownership rates and good zoning and land use policies. Then in a society with high ownership rates and bad zoning and land use policy. It seems to me the US argues way to much about home ownership and not enough about zoning and land use. The reality of the tax system is that current single family homes are ALWAYS massively undertaxed. Strontowns has lots of data on that. What you are suggesting would make this issue even worse because multi-family homes are often by institutional investors too. A land-value tax, a fee based service cost (block based) and much higher cost for the highway. Plus of course changes in the insane zoning laws. Are real solutions to real problems.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Homeowners have voting power. You need to convince the homeowners by giving them a rebate on the land value tax.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Why? Land value tax isn't bad for home owners. It would simply replace property tax. Land value tax pushes speculators and people with empty properties or under-used property. People who live in subburb don't lose on a land value tax based system.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      > It would simply replace property tax. “Replace” seems to indicate that a tax can go away.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        Its really more of change of how a certain tax is calculated. And yes tax policy can change claiming otherwise is just nonsense.

Falkon1313 4y ago

>anyone 'investing' in rentals of any sort (not living there themselves) should be _punishingly_ taxed At which point they raise the rent to cover those taxes, thus the people punished are the renters. Mostly people who already can't to afford to buy or the transaction costs of buying and then selling again short-term. That would be a very regressive tax. And on top of that, it discourages developing rentals and making them available, even further exacerbating the housing supply problems and making life more difficult for less-wealthy people (or really anyone who is not a homeowner).

kcplate 4y ago
> At which point they raise the rent to cover those taxes, thus the people punished are the renters. Why is it that people don’t seem to grasp this?

kubb 4y ago

Yeah, it's such an obvious way to balance the pressure on housing prices and nobody wants to do that.

courgette 4y ago
Nobody being? Some people are all about that. I'm a ( relatively new ) US citizen and I'm all about that type of taxes. I've seen what taxes can do in other part of the word, and that my go-to solution for all issue in this country. Redistribution. Pretty sure my enthusiasm will be tempered with time :) More seriously, highly touristy place impacted by AirBB landlord snatching the whole housing market would be receptive, too.

courgette 4y ago

I've seen countries where that is implemented, having a second home trigger a new set of properties taxes. it's often dubbed "vacation home taxes", it affects any second, third or N property you own after the first one

red-iron-pine 4y ago
Not fundamentally opposed to this, but who collects those taxes? the state? federal? locality? if I have a cottage in the next state, when I file and if I have to pay, does that go to the other state?
- courgette 4y ago
  Why does that have to be a question for every semi hard topic? The US have to choose, are you a federation of states. EU style, or a country? I had a actual country in mind, where tax are collected on a national level. ( note my use of national, not federal ) I get your question and it’s a valid one. Sorry to be grumpy. I’m just tired of “state” being a constant push back to every single topic. I think it was a powerful idea to quickly implement the take over of the continent, but the usefulness might start to stretch.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> anyone 'investing' in rentals of any sort (not living there themselves) should be _punishingly_ taxed Agree with the first, not the second. It not only disincentivises development, it also promotes in-the-family cronyism that corrodes the connection between legal ownership and control. A tax differential which feeds a resident-owner subsidy is more than enough.

jackcosgrove 4y ago
I think a distinction should also be made between single family homes as rentals and multifamily properties as rentals. The latter are purpose-built to be rented out, and that is a necessary use.

panick21_ 4y ago

If you are going to fiddle around with taxes, simply moving to a land tax would do a 1000x more then some marginal tax changes. The reality is a society isn't richer just because people own home. I much rather live in a society with low ownership rates and good zoning and land use policies. Then in a society with high ownership rates and bad zoning and land use policy. It seems to me the US argues way to much about home ownership and not enough about zoning and land use. The reality of the tax system is that current single family homes are ALWAYS massively undertaxed. Strontowns has lots of data on that. What you are suggesting would make this issue even worse because multi-family homes are often by institutional investors too. A land-value tax, a fee based service cost (block based) and much higher cost for the highway. Plus of course changes in the insane zoning laws. Are real solutions to real problems.

imtringued 4y ago
Homeowners have voting power. You need to convince the homeowners by giving them a rebate on the land value tax.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Why? Land value tax isn't bad for home owners. It would simply replace property tax. Land value tax pushes speculators and people with empty properties or under-used property. People who live in subburb don't lose on a land value tax based system.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    > It would simply replace property tax. “Replace” seems to indicate that a tax can go away.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Its really more of change of how a certain tax is calculated. And yes tax policy can change claiming otherwise is just nonsense.