[tempaccount9473]

Selling your property involves paying a 5% cut to the agent, buying a property involves paying 5% in fees as points, closing costs, inspections, legal fees, etc. I would hate to do that every year or two as I moved between employers, but being able to rent an apartment anywhere in the world means I can go where there is demand for my skills.

The reason why people spend 65% of their after-tax income on rent is because people are willing to spend 65% of their after-tax income on rent. Supply and demand is a bitch, and when you fuck with it, you create massive distortions that end up enriching a small minority at the expense of everyone else (for an example, see anyone paying $600/mo for a nice 2 bedroom rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan).

And I like the idea behind a progressive property tax, but it would never, ever, ever become law in the US. Not while there is a single breath of life in any lobbyist or congressman.

[scotty79]

Mobility is important but I think additional costs involved in buying/selling an apartment could be reduced if lots of properties often changed hands. There even could be whole credit products that could follow you and adjust accordingly as you swap houses. I know there's high demand for apartments in some areas but prices of most houses lost touch with what ordinary men can afford and I think artificial scarcity played a role in this. I think such tax could break a lot of currently parasitically growing rent based fortunes.

If you want to see how sick accommodation can get you don't have to look further than Japan. House there is such a valuable asset that it's often shared between three adult generations. And if you have to rent an apartment you often have to pay additional half a year of rent up front as a non-refundable gift to the landlord. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_money

I think government should try to put as much of the real estate in hands of as many different people as it can.

I'm not saying government should hit families that own two or three apartments or houses and rent some. I just don't like the ones that hold dozens of properties (lots of them empty) barely keeping them from falling apart. That's no good to anyone, apart from them.