[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.