We need to tax empty units HARD. Then use those funds directly towards either rental assistance programs to get people into homes or new affordable housing units.
Either land barons will start renting those empty units out or paying the fees to fund housing projects.
The side effect is all those new units on the market might lower rent which lowers home values. So it won’t happen.
Tie the tax to the price of rent and you’ll be guaranteed to see rents dropping
If you like the idea of taxing rent, then you definitely need to read up on Land Value Tax. It ignores all the complexity of trying to figure out the economics of specific practices (it works for retail, commercial, sports areas, etc) into taxing the rent value of the land.
It also encourages building and maintaining housing when compared property taxes (those discourage improvements as improvements increase the landlords taxes).
How do you calculate rent of a condo in NY that’s been vacant for 10 years simply because some C suite doesn’t like hotel?
Or a house in a neighborhood that’s some dudes 4th property he’s just leaving there running an Airbnb
Im having trouble parsing your first question, but I’ll take a crack anyway.
I’d probably calculate tax based on what a vacant unit is available for, if it isn’t available could do something like last known rent adjusted for market or calculations based on property value.
The idea being they’ll list it for rent at a reasonable rate instead of keeping it off the market or keeping rent high in order to fill units.
Some dudes fourth property or a CEOs second apartment aren’t the problems with housing though. It’s investment capital grabbing properties and doing nothing with them. Buildings standing vacant because they weren’t profitable enough. Empty lots we won’t even let the homeless camp on.
A number of these properties are essentially abandoned, forgotten about by bankrupt companies where ownership is on an unsorted piece of paper in a filing cabinet. We’ve got an “affordable apartment complex” out here the company stopped building on quietly after the publicity ran out and it was no longer cost effective.
Resources hoarded and wasted for the rest of us to fight over scraps.
Everyone can claim 2 addresses, anywhere left unclaimed is considered vacant. That’s how it works in my pitch anyways
Agreed. I think if you have more than 2 homes you should pay a luxury tax of sorts on extras. It increases the more you own.
average rent per m² in the area multiplied by area of usable space of the object or you just take the highest rent per m² you can find for the past year as a basis depending on how much discouragement is wanted.
leaving living space unused must be heavily discouraged, because it has so many negative effects on an area.
I’d see a new loophole where the landowners just demolish the buildings to claim the land as vacant instead.
Unfortunately, the land owners will always try to find some kind of loophole to try and squat on land and rent seem as much as possible, but taxing empty units is a good start
I’d see a new loophole where the landowners just demolish the buildings to claim the land as vacant instead.
shrug Keep taxing them based on the value of the building they demolished
I don’t see tearing down Skyscrappers or multi unit complexes as being financially sound or retaining land value
We’re just ants on someone else’s Monopoly board…
What can we eat on a monopoly board?
We can lick the paint!
Oh, I was already doing that.
There are more than 20 empty homes for each homeless person in the US
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