[ncallaway]

Every time I hear this statistic it drives me insane.

I really wish there was an exponential property tax based on the number of properties that someone or some entity owns. I don’t think it would actually be feasible to implement, but I wish something like it existed.

Owning one property? Reasonable/cheap property tax. Own two properties? Pretty expensive property taxes. Own three properties? Eye watering property taxes. Own more than three? Truly insane property taxes.

Especially for vacant properties

[WalterBright]

> Every time I hear this statistic it drives me insane.

It's because while the statistic may be correct, it is a misrepresentation, as a lot of those "empty" homes are awaiting a buyer.

[ncallaway]

> it is a misrepresentation, as a lot of those "empty" homes are awaiting a buyer.

Which means as a society we've chosen to value the liquidity of the housing market (something that I think is really good!) over the basic dignity and needs of human beings (something that I think is even more important!).

That's a societal choice. In a society that absolutely has enough wealth to shelter and feed every person, the fact that we've chosen not to is simply a disgrace. That people die in the cold in America is a moral failing. If we were a poor nation, and couldn't afford otherwise that would be one thing. But we aren't, and it's simply a choice that we make to let people die in the cold.

[WalterBright]

Is it your proposal that any house going on the market should install a homeless person in it until it sells?

[ncallaway]

No.

I made a proposal above (though, you’ll also not that I said I thought my proposal was unlikely to be workable in practice).

But, if you review what I wrote, you’ll note I never proposed anything close to what you asked about.

My actual proposal would be this: we should invest heavily in a housing first approach to homelessness at both the federal and state level. We should invest in this as a priority, as if it will save lives because it will.

Along with that, we should invest in mental health and addiction treatment programs as a supplement.

We should tax the fuck out of the rich to do so in a revenue neutral way.

[WalterBright]

> We should tax the fuck out of the rich to do so in a revenue neutral way.

That's what California does, and the homeless problem in CA just gets worse.

[ncallaway]

The combined state and federal top marginal tax rate is 75% or more?

Is capital gains taxed at the same rate as income?

Then we aren’t taxing the fuck out of the rich.

Does the Federal government and the State of California provide stable housing to every homeless person in the state?

Well, then, what’s why the problem is getting worse.

Actually tax the rich, and actually provide housing first. Until then, we haven’t tried my proposal.

[seanmcdirmid]

Taxes aren’t really bad for the rich in California. Ya, they are higher than normal, but most people who think they are excessive just don’t understand how marginal tax rates work.

[_puk]

"I don’t think it would actually be feasible to implement, but I wish something like it existed."

It's feasible (in some contexts), and has been implemented in Wales in recent years [0] (though not exponential, there's nothing stopping it from progressing that way).

There used to be reduced taxes on second homes, recently changed to 100%, and now changing to max 300% (set by councils).

They've also closed a number of loopholes to stop owners passing these homes off as dysfunctional businesses (listed to let without taking any lettings).

There's a large disparity in wealth over a relatively short physical distance, resulting in a large number of homes in "idyllic" but poor areas being bought as second homes and spending the majority of the year empty.

They've also moved to a land transaction tax that makes the second home purchase more expensive [1].

I'm not saying they are pulling the ladder up, and good to see these initiatives being put in place, but they don't necessarily solve the issue with existing vacant second houses which most likely have benefited from the lax taxation over the years combined with increasing property values.

0: https://gov.wales/new-tax-rules-second-homes

1: https://gov.wales/land-transaction-tax-guide

[simon_000666]

I Wonder if there are some simple legal solutions to this. Like only individuals and non-profits are allowed to own houses or you can only own a property if you are registered as a resident of the city. I like the sliding scale tax idea but I think the firms would just find ways to continually invest in new properties and use that to dodge tax until a point where they offshore :(

[paulgb]

> Like only individuals and non-profits are allowed to own houses or you can only own a property if you are registered as a resident of the city.

As a renter, I’m not a fan of this. The worst landlords I’ve had have been local and the best has been a corporation based in another city.

The problem of vacant apartments is that as long as there’s a shortage of housing in places people want, housing that has been built will increase in value. If we reduce the artificial constraints on building more housing, it will also remove the incentive to leave housing vacant.

[snovv_crash]

People will just tear down the extra building rather than paying the tax.

This happened in Switzerland, where towns with more vacancies were assigned a higher number of refugees. In order to avoid this the towns demolished the empty buildings.

[deadbolt]

Well then I suppose we could write a better law than the one Switzerland created?

I don't think anyone is recommending we reimplement failed efforts, line for line.

[snovv_crash]

I don't think this is an issue that can be solved by authoritarian thinking. If politicians do something people don't like, people will vote them out next time around.

[kiba]

You don't need to overcomplicate things by draconianly taxing corporate entities if you implement the land value tax, which taxes land, but not property, and set the rate at a high appropriate level.

That's what the georgism advocate.

The problem of property as investment is not so new as a problem.

For my part, I am against the over ever evolving taxation schemes such as setting property tax sky high to deter speculators but not homeowners, without addressing the root cause of the current crisis.

First, homeowners are still incentivized to support housing supply restriction. Second, improvement on said properties are disincentivized. Which is why you want to tax land, but not property.

This is a systematic problem, not going to be solved by merely targeting a small part of the landowning population.

[socialismisok]

Aggressively tax vacant units is the simplest to implement, but there's a lot (lot) more that could be done.

[yardstick]

How does one determine if it’s vacant?

I could just leave a PC on mining some random coin to ensure there was always a bit of power going on. Likewise leave a tap slowly going. Cheaper than any tax most likely.

[socialismisok]

If it's not vacant, it's someone's primary residence which is recorded, but also the landlords will have receipts and be taxed. If there is a vacant unit, the landlord's income with be smaller than expected and can be used to ask the landlord to attest to the occupancy of their units.

[Ekaros]

Some level of registration of population. Have to have a legal resident residing in the home with the address or it is vacant.

[hugh-avherald]

What if you go on holiday?

[ilammy]

You can go wherever you want. The house isn’t going anywhere, it’s still registered as yours and you still pay taxes for it, with a discount if you designate it as your primary residence.

[Ekaros]

Residing meaning that your official address is there. If you go vacation for such long time that you move your address the home becomes vacant.

[true_religion]

The lowest rate of tax increase only happens after 2 years. Are people taking 24 month holidays normally?

[jedberg]

Usually it's based on where you file your taxes. You can only file taxes from one address.

[yardstick]

Would this mean an end to holiday homes and second homes?

[jedberg]

No it would just mean paying higher taxes on second homes and vacation homes. Which feels like the right thing to do.

[Ekaros]

Why not? Does anyone deserve such homes if there is people who could permanently live in them? Or maybe some reasonable cost involved let's say 20% a year.

[aaronbrethorst]

Build more homes.

[jasonkester]

Why?

I have two houses: one in England, one in France. I live in one during the year and one in The summer. Neither one is an investment. They’re both our home. Combined, they would sell for less than a cheap house in Southern California.

Why do you want me to pay extra property tax because my home is split in two?

It sounds like hold this view that anybody who owns anything is necessarily evil. But most of us are just people living their lives as best we can.

[ncallaway]

> Why do you want me to pay extra property tax because my home is split in two?

This is like asking why I want to make sure everyone gets a slice of cake before you go for a second slice.

I absolutely have nothing against you having two properties, but while homeless people exist in these societies, I absolutely think it should be expensive for you to do so. If we get to a place where homelessness doesn't exist, then I'd absolutely want you to be able to own a second property at no financial penalty.

> It sounds like hold this view that anybody who owns anything is necessarily evil.

I never said any such thing. I described adding taxes to a behavior that I think leads to a bad social outcome.

There are lots of things that I think we should tax as a means of changing behavior without saying someone who engages in those behaviors is evil.

Frankly, I don't know why you'd have this perception from my comment, but it's certainly not accurate. I own things! I don't think it's evil. There are lots of activities that I personally do that I think should be taxed at a higher rate.

I own a home, and think my property taxes should be higher. I own a business, and think my business taxes should be higher. Just because I advocate for higher taxes on things I personally do, doesn't lead me to believe I'm evil.

[magicalist]

Land is finite, desirable land even more so. You can summer in France but you can pay more to do so than if you lived there year round. Call it an incentive, not a punishment, if you want.

[jasonkester]

But I do pay more. I had to purchase an entire house and pay taxes on it.

There is no shortage of houses here in farmland France or up in rural north England[1], which explains why houses are cheap enough that you can buy two of them. That’s the housing market working like it’s supposed to. Why does it need punishing or incentivising?

[1] there are towns within a few miles with hundreds of boarded up row houses that you could get for a few thousand pounds if you like. Our village in France is surrounded by fields as far as you can see in two directions. If you want to come live here, you can (and people often do) buy a small piece of that land and build a house.

[magicalist]

> But I do pay more

More per house. There's no natural law saying taxes need to be equal per house, or that they need to be commensurate with services consumed by those living in them. Taxes (and tax breaks) are also used to incentivize behavior, which is the answer to your original question of "why".

[taneq]

Your home isn’t split in two. You have two homes, one of which stands empty at any given time. That’s what they’re arguing against, some people owning multiple houses while others are homeless. They’re not saying it should be impossible, just more expensive.

[jasonkester]

But anybody with a spare bedroom is doing the same thing by your logic. Nobody is in the kitchen right now. You monster.

The solution isn’t to stick homeless people in every available space. It’s to build places for them to live.

In your case, if your hypothetical homeless person wants to live on my street, he can buy one of the three homes currently for sale there, for the same price mine would sell for. How about we at least wait to see if he buys one of those before you go kicking me out of mine?

[smileysteve]

You jest about the kitchen and rooms, but the 80s saw a shift away from communal boarding options while reducing mental health treatment. There's a portion of the housing market that should have a communal kitchen, bathroom.

San Francisco has started building these again as startup incubators, but that's not the only target market

[taneq]

The slope isn’t that slippery. It’s not unreasonable to consider a home as an indivisible unit.

> if your hypothetical homeless person wants to live on my street, he can buy one of the three homes currently for sale there, for the same price mine would sell for.

Haha oh those silly homeless people, they should just buy houses, right?

[alexvoda]

Exactly, the effect of such a law would be to incentivize building mansions. And the savvy owners may even go the route of forming collectives of mansion owners.

Therefore each owner only owns one massive house that friends can use part of and spends most of the time at other friends massive houses.

[ww520]

Who do you think own the rentals that people live in?

[SpaghettiX]

This happens in the UK, to an extent. Council tax (For a 3 bed flat in a good location, £2000/year) goes up, though not exponentially.

> You can be charged an extra amount of Council Tax (a ‘premium’) if your home has been empty for 2 years or more.

> You can be charged up to 4 times your normal Council Tax bill if your home has been empty for 10 years or more.

[refurb]

Or, stay with me here, you just build enough housing?

I know it’s a crazy idea, so go easy on me.

[mordae]

I've seen some calculations suggesting that the speculators will buy up anything at this point. It's impossible to build enough. Partly because buying up new houses protects the investment into the already owned.

Also, what makes you think the market is not working and new houses are not being built at the highest possible pace? Given the prices, that would be a sensible assumption, no?

[WalterBright]

> speculators will buy up anything at this point

The headline says "Investor home purchases drop 30%".

> Partly because buying up new houses protects the investment into the already owned.

That doesn't work. See the latest news on cryptocurrencies.

[refurb]

Houses aren't being build which is the reason we're in trouble.

And no, investors won't buy up all the houses. Blackrock's massive home buying fund was <1% of the total value of the housing market.

[paulgb]

I haven’t seen those calculations but I’m very skeptical. The reason people are profitably able to invest in housing is that it is scarce. If the supply increased, housing would no longer be a desirable investment.

> what makes you think the market is not working and new houses are not being built at the highest possible pace

There’s a lot of political pressure by existing homeowners not to green light additional housing in their neighborhoods, because it would bring the price of the homes they already own down. There are a number of high-density projects in NYC and SF that have been blocked by these efforts.