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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
No, i'd like property tax thats (near) zero for your first property/house/apartment, and then rising for each next one. This would make hoarding properties impossible, and using properties as investment (atleast if we're talking more than one) very expensive.
I was just saying that my idea is not problematic with multi apartment buildings, because once the apartments are sold, the owner doesn't have to pay property tax anymore.
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.