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The city doesn't know how to police this [absentee ownership]. The world wants to pay our property taxes, but use a negligible amount of our local services? Th

by gojomo 12y ago

The city doesn't know how to police this [absentee ownership]. The world wants to pay our property taxes, but use a negligible amount of our local services? That doesn't require policing – just wise exploitation. Allow as much high-density luxury housing as possible. (Let the world pay us to build and hold!) But then also, make it easier for absentee owners to casually lease out their holdings, so the marginal incentives are to open vacant units up to residents or tourists. The world wanting to move-to, visit, or even just invest-in your jurisdiction only becomes a problem, rather than a boon, with stubborn mismanagement.

ktothemc 12y ago
Our property taxes stay relatively constant via Prop. 13, while price appreciation is great given all the growth control. We do not make it easy for absentee owners to "casually lease" out their holdings. Our tenant laws are some of the more stringent in the entire country and if we were to relax them, all the longtime middle or low-income residents protected by them would might washed out immediately. Furthermore, it just wouldn't happen politically because no one would vote for it. We are a city of 2/3s renters.
- gojomo 12y ago
  Yes, the mismanagement is popular with the incumbent renters (and many property-owners). But people need to understand the potential fixes, even if the best fixes look politically impossible in the short term. As the pain of the current mismanagement increases, big changes will become thinkable. The current setup isn't even that good for all renters (and potential renters) – just a tenured subset. Maybe absentee landlords (and businesses and holding companies) shouldn't get Prop 13 tax protection. Maybe when the effective tax basis (Prop-13-limited) is wildly out of whack, the yearly increase should be higher than 1%, as a catch-up. (Same with rent control.) Maybe new tenants, in new construction, should be under a different regime (like how newer construction skips rent control), to enable healthier turnover while 'grandfathering' in the (dwindling) lower-income population. Your writing has been excellent on causes, but fairly quick to cut short discussion of possible solutions because of current political taboos. But a deeper discussion of unpopular options – that would in fact work very well – is the only way to fix that unpopularity.

by gojomo 12y ago

ktothemc 12y ago

Our property taxes stay relatively constant via Prop. 13, while price appreciation is great given all the growth control. We do not make it easy for absentee owners to "casually lease" out their holdings. Our tenant laws are some of the more stringent in the entire country and if we were to relax them, all the longtime middle or low-income residents protected by them would might washed out immediately. Furthermore, it just wouldn't happen politically because no one would vote for it. We are a city of 2/3s renters.

gojomo 12y ago
Yes, the mismanagement is popular with the incumbent renters (and many property-owners). But people need to understand the potential fixes, even if the best fixes look politically impossible in the short term. As the pain of the current mismanagement increases, big changes will become thinkable. The current setup isn't even that good for all renters (and potential renters) – just a tenured subset. Maybe absentee landlords (and businesses and holding companies) shouldn't get Prop 13 tax protection. Maybe when the effective tax basis (Prop-13-limited) is wildly out of whack, the yearly increase should be higher than 1%, as a catch-up. (Same with rent control.) Maybe new tenants, in new construction, should be under a different regime (like how newer construction skips rent control), to enable healthier turnover while 'grandfathering' in the (dwindling) lower-income population. Your writing has been excellent on causes, but fairly quick to cut short discussion of possible solutions because of current political taboos. But a deeper discussion of unpopular options – that would in fact work very well – is the only way to fix that unpopularity.