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by redleggedfrog 818 days ago
I assume that means, "The obvious solution is to increase property tax on rental properties to force the hand of landlords.

Otherwise you're taxing the potential and new home-owners who might be on the edge of being able to afford a house.

I'd pretty much go for anything like this at this point that would stop the ever widening gap between average income and average house price - and I'm a landlord.

3 comments

If you only increased property tax on rentals and not owner-occupied homes, it would basically be a tax increase on the poor (since they are competing for rentals, and landlords that would rent to them all have the same property tax increase). I would never go for it.
Rental income already pushes most private landlords into a high tax bracket. Probably at least 20% of rent goes straight back to the government in tax. If the tenant was paying mortgage payments or social housing rent instead then no tax...
Much of the gap of debt to income comes from interest rates. I don't know what the best way to address this, but I think we can require larger downpayments for investment properties too.