[ajsnigrutin]

I'm generally against taxes on stuff that is not vastly limited (buildable area in a good location is very limited compared to other stuff), but progressive tax here would solve a lot of problems (eg, 0% on your first property and primary residence, 1% yearly on your second one, 2% on third, ...). This would basically make owning more than two or three properties very expensive, and owning hundreds or thousands of properties impossible.

[xputer]

The Netherlands just implemented an 8% property transfer tax for investors in the housing market. This seems to have discouraged a lot of investors from buying up homes in the past year compared to previous years. Still there are massive shortages on the housing market though.

[jdross]

How do you suggest multi-family housing or single family suburban infill housing gets built affordably?

[ajsnigrutin]

You can never go below cost... that's a nonissue. But we have shitty houses, worth $100k in labour and materials going for millions+, due to sheer unavailability of housing.

Housing is something people need to live, not an investment option.

Also, USA has a problem with building large apartment buildings, where even overcrowded places like san francisco still build single family houses, instead of 5, 10+ story apartment buildings everywhere.

[jdross]

These are zoning and policy issues, not tax or incentive issues.

[JKCalhoun]

Progressive tax applies only to single-family homes.

[ajsnigrutin]

It doesn't have to. You can still build an apartment highrise, and sell the apartments and make profit... and the owners, if it's their only realestate, still get taxed at minimum rate.

[rsj_hn]

It doesn't work like that. Please see an accountant to advise you on this, because if this is really what you think -- e.g. that the profits of developers or even owner-developers are not taxed -- then you are in for a world of hurt if you get audited. Only the unit you are living in is allotted special cap gains privileges. Not other units, even if those units are built on property that used to be a SFH. Tax treatment for developing residential real estate is a complex beast.

[ajsnigrutin]

I'm not an american.

here you can build a multi apartment building, sell each apartment as a separate unit to different people, and the common property (hallways, grass around the building, etc.) is divided between the apartment owners (and they pay whatever amount for taking care of that). After all the apartments are sold, the investment firm owes nothing there anymore. Of course they pay VAT, their profits are taxed, etc, when selling the apartments, but after that, they have nothing to do with that property anymore.

What I was talking about was basic property tax, which should be higher for each property (house, apartment,...) you own. This would make owning many properties very expensive, and force people to sell.

[rsj_hn]

> Of course they pay VAT, their profits are taxed, etc, when selling the apartments, but after that, they have nothing to do with that property anymore.

Well, that's what you'd expect, no? After they sell the units, then whoever owns the units pays property tax on them.

Or do you want to pay property taxes on a unit you no longer own?