Sure leaving a SV house on Marina Dr. empty is nice just in case I want to use it, but we ought not condone or enable this self-serving behavior. It's disrespectful. Why do so many in this country still admire these types of wealthy people?
> we ought not condone or enable this self-serving behavior.
so what do you suggest? make it illegal to not live in your house ? Have a city inspector drive by once a week and see if lights are on and cars are parked nearby ? Every homeowner has to show up every 90 days to get their property ownership license stamped ?
sure, having vacant houses is a waste of resources. but having wealthy people actually use their money - even in a wasteful manner - can be a good thing. more money moving through the economy is better than less money moving through the economy.
You say that that like it's a crazy idea, but Vancouver's done just that, and enacted an empty house tax[1]. It took effect at the beginning of this year, and it's not a huge amount (~$7.5k) compared to the price of a house. What's interesting is the penalty for lying - $7.5k/day. How this works out remains to be see though.
did you read the comments yesterday about the traffic-ticket guy ? top comment was someone who was ticketed after he sold the car and SFO absolutely would not accept his indisputable proof of innocence. If SFO can't even apply a rule fairly with a $200 penalty, what do you think would happen if they were entrusted with meting out $7500/day penalties?
I also have huge issues with the government deciding what you can do with your property after you've bought and paid for it. If they can change the terms of your contract, worth 6 and 7 figures, that not only erodes faith in the real estate market but it effectively means you never own it in the first place (inb4 the tax-protester argument of "you never owned it anyway because tax". yes I know that).
It's only your property in so far as the government/society surrounding you says it is, unless you plan on defending it yourself, but that didn't work out so well for a certain group in Waco, TX.
I'd be for 99-year or lifetime leases. Just so that you can own your property for as long as you're alive, but not long enough to establish mini-dynasties where the only people who can own property are extremely wealthy (family becomes wealthy because they inherited a house and have no mortgage, supply of houses goes down, prices go up, gradually the only people who own them are those who inherited them).
I'd suggest applying a tax proportional to the market increase in value on secondary homes. In other words, if you really want that second home, go for it, but you won't be making any money off it. Think a million dollars tax for some years on a pricey home. I'd also be sympathetic to people who would like to take it further and look at the negative externalities, so those could be included into the tax.
All this happens when you go to fill out your taxes and declare your properties and primary residence. I don't want to tell people they can't do it, but they ought to pay the price for disallowing others to enjoy our most beautiful locations.
How about keeping the capital gains tax I suggested on secondary homes, thus keeping out one class of people, those who are actually making handsome profits on this behavior.
Renting out to people during the 6 months of the year is already an incentive, you get a check each month. You might also get to talk to a few people, learn a few things and make some new friends. Not sure if there is renter insurance, but that might be nice in case you get a tenant that damages the place. A service like that might give property owners some peace of mind.
Harsh as it sounds, and without wishing to be personal (but of course, everything is personal to someone) that's good news. It should discourage you from doing more landlording. Maybe even encourage you to stop making this loss.
I also want to discourage anyone else from doing more landlording, and a tax break for you and others like you would work against that.
How do poor people get a roof over their heads if there aren't any landlords? It's ridiculous to expect everyone to have $10,000s in cash to get a mortgage before they're allowed to have a place to live.
I said more landlording. Some landlording is necessary. There comes a point where it's creating a new rentier class and a new permanent underclass. I'm against rich people taking advantage of a very unfree market to get a permanent low-risk income from poor people, while ensuring that prices are so high those poor people will be kept like that forever.
I've rented the same flat myself for ten years and barring any huge changes, it's in my financial interests to do so forever, rather than buy a house. That should be the common state, but it's more expensive in many places at the moment to rent than to buy. Which suggests, to my mind, that something should push that balance back the other way.
I just think it shouldn't be very profitable. There are some things a well run state or region can be very good at (and in a number of places around the world, is very good at); maintaining a rental housing stock or other such housing programme is one of them.
not only that, but buying isn't for everyone. Not everyone plans to stay in one spot for a long time. If you cut out all renting, there aren't many more options than forcing everyone to buy a home every time they move somewhere.
point taken. I bought my house in the wake of the 2008 crises (bought in 2011 when prices were rock-bottom). One point of view is that I did a good thing by buying when the market was at a free-fall (even though I did it strictly for investment purposes, I'm a single guy with no need for a 4bd house). I helped create a bottom, I helped create a demand where there was none.
People have made your argument but with short-selling in the stock market: "short selling should be banned, there shouldn't be incentivized pessimism in the market", but those people overlook the fact that short-sellers are obligated to buy back, and they can create a bottom in the market when there otherwise wouldn't be one. (if XYZ corp just went up in flames, who the hell would want to buy them (thus allowing more people to unload their shares)? Why, short-sellers of course - because they have to )
I don't agree that my argument is akin to wanting to ban short-selling. I don't see the link. You've brought up an argument about creating bottoms in the market, but my argument has nothing to do with those.
the similarity is that you want to ban something ("landlording") that doesn't have a positive, feel-good reputation (poor people getting cheaper houses/rents), but which has positive effects such as creating a bottom and increasing market efficiency.
People have been conditioned to do so. There's no intrinsic reason why property rights should be protected to a greater degree than workers' rights, but libertarianism promotes awareness of one and not the other. It's kind of a circular reasoning, but useful as an observation.
That's an overly broad and inaccurate depiction of libertarianism on the issue. A considerable segment of libertarianism advocates such measures as land value taxation, which places it directly at odds with the land owning class.
