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All those things declared an emergency REALLY ARE to more than half the population. All the TDS aside, yes. I think the main thing we need to do is make a fede

All those things declared an emergency REALLY ARE to more than half the population. All the TDS aside, yes. I think the main thing we need to do is make a federal property tax for any unused house or rental. Something that billionaires can afford, but only for their personal homes - and something that will basically force all landlords to sell immediately. Every actual real property will be forced onto the market in seconds and everyone will be able to buy a house that needs one for pennies on the dollar. It will be amazing. Let's start with 1000% per hour.

jvanderbot 1y ago
What do you do about all the homeowners who are now paying for a home that has lost value? They just take a walk? What about the sellers who can't sell their house for what they owe now? They just take the same walk? And the banks and mortgage backed securities, even the stable ones, are now worth jack? What about the 401K accounts that now lose 20% or their value because it was all piled on housing related funds unbeknownst to the investor? It amounts to a mass seizure and redistribution, except those who were seized from still have to pay back what they borrowed, so it's even worse!
- recursive 1y ago
  Affordable housing seems in direct conflict to the interests of those using their home as an investment or store of value, strategically or not. As a home owner, I think the best move for the country as a whole probably doesn't align with the financial interests of the current home-owning class. The idea of a home as investment seems to inevitably cause this kind of conflict.
  - jvanderbot 1y ago
    That's only part of the problem. It doesn't need to be an investment, but causing a purchased item, one that is almost exclusively purchased with loans, to plummet in value burdens purchasers for decades with needless payments. Might as well just garnish wages and redistribute to your chosen demographic
    - recursive 1y ago
      We got ourselves into this. Getting out will be painful but I don't see any other way out.
    - Ericson2314 1y ago
      We're gonna bail these leveraged-to-the-gills normies out, with profits to them, on the condition that SFH ownership society is destroyed — never again. Only condo homeowners, and people living in truely rural areas "irrationally", will remain.
  - Ericson2314 1y ago
    You are right we have a stupid set up, but actually there is an easy way out: a lot of SFH get turned into dense apartments, and a lot of homeowners get rich as hell because they own the land. We should have a LVT, so the landholders don't get too rich, but it can be a bit lower than ideal (which would mean that conversion to apartment is break even because future earnings - cap ex and taxes net out)
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 1y ago
> Something that billionaires can afford, but only for their personal homes - and something that will basically force all landlords to sell immediately. Not possible, because if its a tax an unused homes or rentals, what it would force people to do is either: (1) make it qualify as “used”, or, (2) destroy the residential structure on the land to preserve the value of the underlying land, which would no longer have an unused home or rental on it. (Of course, you’ll never get the Constitutional amendment needed to carve out a new exception to both the prohibition on unapportioned direct taxes and the takings clause of the 5th Amendment that you’d need for that, so its moot anyway.)
Nevermark 1y ago
Source of these ideas: Economist Henry George.[0] When land is taxed, but the property on it is not, and rates are normalized to maintain neutral tax flow due to the change: 1. Someone who owns land with little productive development, will see a large tax increase. 2. Someone who owns the adjacent same-sized plot, with higher value development, will pay the same tax, instead of a prior much greater tax. So development isn't taxed, making development more attractive, as it will have a higher return. Much greater incentive to usefully develop land. Much greater disincentives to holding relatively less usefully developed land. Also good alignment: (1) a land tax, taxes the exclusionary asset, paying a tax on essentially rents the land from the community. Which makes sense. (2) Not paying a tax on development, removes a wealth tax on any land owner from any financial scale. (3) That wealth tax on wealth disincentivize development, relative to other investments. (4) The lower property taxes on less developed land, that we have now, means that high value property wealth tax, is subsiding the returns of Lower development land owners. (5) And that imbalance accounts for lands use as a financial instrument, instead of land + use, as the investment. Holding land prices up, while subsidizing non-development holding. The elimination of most land-price driven investment, would reduce a massive amount of artificial demand, resulting in more supply and lower prices, for those who wanted to make returns by further developing the land. Land's use as "gold" is incredibly wasteful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

jvanderbot 1y ago

What do you do about all the homeowners who are now paying for a home that has lost value? They just take a walk? What about the sellers who can't sell their house for what they owe now? They just take the same walk? And the banks and mortgage backed securities, even the stable ones, are now worth jack? What about the 401K accounts that now lose 20% or their value because it was all piled on housing related funds unbeknownst to the investor? It amounts to a mass seizure and redistribution, except those who were seized from still have to pay back what they borrowed, so it's even worse!

recursive 1y ago
Affordable housing seems in direct conflict to the interests of those using their home as an investment or store of value, strategically or not. As a home owner, I think the best move for the country as a whole probably doesn't align with the financial interests of the current home-owning class. The idea of a home as investment seems to inevitably cause this kind of conflict.
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  That's only part of the problem. It doesn't need to be an investment, but causing a purchased item, one that is almost exclusively purchased with loans, to plummet in value burdens purchasers for decades with needless payments. Might as well just garnish wages and redistribute to your chosen demographic
  - recursive 1y ago
    We got ourselves into this. Getting out will be painful but I don't see any other way out.
  - Ericson2314 1y ago
    We're gonna bail these leveraged-to-the-gills normies out, with profits to them, on the condition that SFH ownership society is destroyed — never again. Only condo homeowners, and people living in truely rural areas "irrationally", will remain.
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  You are right we have a stupid set up, but actually there is an easy way out: a lot of SFH get turned into dense apartments, and a lot of homeowners get rich as hell because they own the land. We should have a LVT, so the landholders don't get too rich, but it can be a bit lower than ideal (which would mean that conversion to apartment is break even because future earnings - cap ex and taxes net out)

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 1y ago

> Something that billionaires can afford, but only for their personal homes - and something that will basically force all landlords to sell immediately. Not possible, because if its a tax an unused homes or rentals, what it would force people to do is either: (1) make it qualify as “used”, or, (2) destroy the residential structure on the land to preserve the value of the underlying land, which would no longer have an unused home or rental on it. (Of course, you’ll never get the Constitutional amendment needed to carve out a new exception to both the prohibition on unapportioned direct taxes and the takings clause of the 5th Amendment that you’d need for that, so its moot anyway.)

Nevermark 1y ago

Source of these ideas: Economist Henry George.[0] When land is taxed, but the property on it is not, and rates are normalized to maintain neutral tax flow due to the change: 1. Someone who owns land with little productive development, will see a large tax increase. 2. Someone who owns the adjacent same-sized plot, with higher value development, will pay the same tax, instead of a prior much greater tax. So development isn't taxed, making development more attractive, as it will have a higher return. Much greater incentive to usefully develop land. Much greater disincentives to holding relatively less usefully developed land. Also good alignment: (1) a land tax, taxes the exclusionary asset, paying a tax on essentially rents the land from the community. Which makes sense. (2) Not paying a tax on development, removes a wealth tax on any land owner from any financial scale. (3) That wealth tax on wealth disincentivize development, relative to other investments. (4) The lower property taxes on less developed land, that we have now, means that high value property wealth tax, is subsiding the returns of Lower development land owners. (5) And that imbalance accounts for lands use as a financial instrument, instead of land + use, as the investment. Holding land prices up, while subsidizing non-development holding. The elimination of most land-price driven investment, would reduce a massive amount of artificial demand, resulting in more supply and lower prices, for those who wanted to make returns by further developing the land. Land's use as "gold" is incredibly wasteful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George