this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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The housing crisis is caused by property taxes being too low, particularly on land values. Banning small rentals won't work because they'll continue to extract rent under longer-term leases.
We already have plenty of houses. Increase taxes and their market values will drop.
The housing crisis is caused by many things.
Ban the ownership of single family residential properties by corporations. I don't see a world where it makes sense for houses to be owned by companies.
This is a big one, and I'd add in an aggressive tax for owning multiple properties. Make single land ownership ~70% of what it currently is, and each additional property increases all your property tax by 300%. Couple that with getting rid of idiotic exemptions (seriously...I have a friend with parents that owned more than a hundred different properties in a semi-rural area [one that was going to become suburban soon] and paid nearly no taxes because they plunked a few cows onto each one until the development companies paid the big moolah for them) and there would be plenty of homes for everyone. Last report I remember said we had more than enough empty homes sitting around to house every homeless person multiple times over.
What would you say the housing crisis is? I'm viewing it not as a shortage, just that that market prices are too high.
Not that I strongly disagree with your suggestion, but taxes that raise money have an advantage over bans that cost money.
I think it depends on the area. Some places near me have very limited rentals available yet if you search airbnb in those areas they have way more. Airbnbs for a house can charge what a weeks rent is per night. The owner only needs to have people in the house for 2 months to make the same they would renting it out. When i first moved out of home rent prices jumped 50-100% in 2 years. I'm not sure what caused it but since then rents haven't jump as much but are still very high. Rent used to be maybe 30% at most of wages now its 60%+. Of course theres more factors involved than just the landlords but airbnbs have helped pump rent prices up due to lack of supply. My single mother working part time was able to buy a house when I was younger, now dual income families can't afford that. Some people out there don't work and get money solely from owning houses and renting them out, decreasing supply for other people, increasing prices. The housing crisis, which is worldwide, is a multi-faceted issue which can be (over)simplified and explained by one word. Greed.
Many leading economist argue for land value tax only as a way to incentivize the most efficient use for our most valuable resource. If land tax was used instead of property tax, a multi-acre plot in a dense urban would be taxed just as much a multi-story apartment building that takes up the same amount of space.
See the Strongtowns article on the subject. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-isnt-it-being-implemented