Do you mind sharing why this might be a better idea? I’ve seen pretty scummy non profits.

The idea of charging owner-occupants a different tax rate than an investor is fairly common. At least 28 states already have some sort of general "homestead exemption", "second home tax", or similar policy.

The changes that need to happen are 1. the exemption needs to be increased at the same rate that the tax is increased; 2. The exemption and tax rate increases need to be tied to a specifically targeted owner-occupancy rate; 3. Federal and state governments cannot be allowed to overrule local authorities on issues of property tax policies.

It's not a complete cure, but it will convert investors from parasitic landlords to parasitic investors. They're going to keep ripping us off as best they can. But no matter how badly they will be exploiting us, we will be gaining equity in the process. Going from "zero equity" to "any equity whatsoever" is an infinite improvement over the current degree of exploitation in the housing market.

If only the people that would make these laws were not the ones profiting from it.

I don't get how vacant property tax works with two houses, if I have two there is no way I can live in both for longer than 4 months. am bad at math, that'll only start being a problem from 3 houses

And some summer houses where I'm from are built in such a way that you will really struggle to live there outside the season. I'm not sure this should be universally applicable especially in case of house used for living in it, and not renting out

IMO it should be very low for 1 acre, but the amount of tax you pay per acre increases with every acre you own. Farmers would get an exemption for agricultural land, but only if they bring a crop to the market so it's designated as used farmland. This would prevent rich people with 1,000 acres from calling their private property a farm and paying next to nothing. Nope. Either grow a crop on it or pay uncle sam.

There is one huge flaw with the idea, whose aims I fully support: banks regularly own hundreds and thousands of homes through foreclosures. They need to be able to take back a home, because that is what makes it possible to have cheap mortgages. Banks are in fact some of the largest home owners in the country.

What might work better is a sales tax. Everybody pays some godawfully huge amount of money, like 10%, when they purchase a home. You add a 0% sales tax for a primary residence (which of course needs a resident, which is a physical person), maybe a 5% tax for a secondary.

The main goal is twofold: make homes artificially expensive when purchase is not tied to occupancy and discourage short-term speculation. This saves the ability of banks to repossess a home (there is no sale here), and it allows for expansion of rental housing, since the tax is one-time and not recurring, meaning its impact is minimized with prolonged ownership.

What if, instead of that, property tax was based on the assessed value of the property when assessed for its current use? But also by "current" we mean like 5-10 years ago and when we assess we don't look at recent neighborhood comps, we look at the previously assessed value.

I assume they didn't mean seasonal as in "can only be used in certain seasons", rather that you occupy it for vacation or summer or whatever. Not sure if you are from a non-mountany or very populated country, but where I come from, mountain "hüttes" are a thing and do not contribute to the housing crisis - or at least not in the usual way I can think of. Some people choose to live in those areas, I am very envious of their courage and peace :) But 99% do not make this choice, just use it for winter/summer long get-aways.

Landlords should not exist. Hope that clears it up for you.

This doesn't make sense when you consider a lot of land isn't farmable. And if it's fixed per acre, then you aren't really taxing the value of the homes on the land either. The simpler solution is kind of what OP is saying, for each additional home you own there is a multiplier on its property taxes. Say your rate is 1% on your first home, it's now 2% for the second, 3% for the 3rd, ect. Have 100 homes/apartments, you will be paying 100% of it's assessed value in taxes each year. It would be interesting to see how that plays out and someone a lot smarter than me could run the simulations of how to disincentivize corporate land ownership without destroying people's abilities to own homes.

That's a big thing at least in the US when people talk about occupancy rates for homes, they often are talking about vacation homes, which are seasonal in nature and in general wouldn't be able to be lived in year round to begin with. I like the idea of simple higher taxes on assessed value for each additional home you own, with the highest assessed value home having the highest tax rates.

Make it progressive. First $x is untaxed, $x+y is taxed at some percent, the next $x+z is taxed higher, and so on.

Also build more housing in general.

why not just based on purchase price provided it was bought at market value. Still that should only apply to one primary residence. Oh and if it changes hands for any reason. like inheritance. it needs to use the value when the hands changed.

Seems overly complicated. Why not just tax based on the assessed value of the land. Undeveloped forest one one acre, basically nothing. 2,500sqft McMansion on 1 acre, worth $1 million. Own more than one home? Tax rate gets a multiplier which exponentially grows. Hell, even at a linear rate, by the time you own 100 homes, you are paying 100% of assessed value per year in taxes.

I agree with the spirit of this, but the one issue is that someone with a 40 room mansion pays 1%. I say make it simple and make second homes cost double. Third quadruple, etc.

Carve out some exceptions for narrow cases, like a congressperson who needs to maintain a separate home in DC.

How would that work for apartment buildings or 4-plexes?

I mean they shouldn't need to have a second home in dc. Let's go ahead and just give them dorm rooms while they're there working so that way they can feel like they're actually at the behest of the people that are actually serving. That's also cut their pay down so that way it's only equal to the minimum wage while they're working and if they're not working they need to get a job and do something else.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but 1% of a 40 room home would be pretty high would it not?

Oh yeah, didn't change when I was in High School. The football field held all the priority. Yet my last year, you had to pay to participate in sports.... Health class was held in something that looked like a dark prison cell.

Ah but my company doesn’t own a home, my company manages other companies homes, each company own 5 homes each.

And that ONE human making the money should also be responsible for any damages his company makes!

You know we could call it "Accountability", sounds good to me I don't know why it's not so already.

I concur, total assessed value of all real estate holdings would be a better metric.

Bingo !

The UK has a sales tax like that on home purchases. The problem is that it prevents people from selling houses when their kids move out. It's too expensive to sell the house and buy a new one, so you have a lot of older couples living in five bedroom houses that are empty.

That's exactly how it works in a lot of places.

Hear me out: we also count all the subsidiaries company as the same entity of the owner company, now we have less exploits too

Some people have suggested that it starts after the second house, which I would be on board with. But also, it starts lower for one home. Two homes is significantly more, but still low. as the number goes up, the percentage goes up until it becomes untenable to buy massive housing stock for rental or investment.

I strongly disagree. Lol. The number of homes doesn't matter. Land is land. Everyone should be able to own an acre at an affordable price. If greedy pigs want to gobble up all the land and keep it for themselves they should pay more. Only farmers should get an exemption for using land to grow food.

I don't get what you people are talking about. "but I own two house son my land" like you want special treatment because you own more than one house? If anything you should pay even more in taxes. I don't get it. So many rich people want special treatment for being rich.

That's like saying people with major medical issues "are looking for" insurance salespeople to fix their medical issues. They "need" insurance because the system is fucked, not because insurance will make them better. Likewise, no one "looks for" a landlord, they look for housing they can afford.

Well, usually commercial buildings are separate from residential.

But yes, I see the problem with the first example.

I don't see a problem with the first example.

If it's such a big deal why does he need a quarter billion house at all?

Still better than one corporation owning 500 houses and profiting from them.

Edit the UK has a vacancy rate of zero of about 73% of corporate landlords, so your older couple could rent rooms to 4 lodgers and come out ahead.

They won't, which is a lifestyle choice.

Everyone dances around the fact that the government should be building low income housing themselves. We should not be begging the for profit house building industry to fix the problem they've made.

How Britain almost solved the housing crisis

I can only upvote once, so I'm once again asking everyone to click the link above.

I own two and I pay a percentage based off the property value.

You should be paying double the rate for both of them, since you have twice as many as you need

Consider somebody who escaped generational poverty through athletics, film, etc. One of the smartest ways for somebody without a wealthy support system to end the cycle of generational poverty is to own property. Now, say that the sports star or a film star wants to by a secondary house for a friend, a teacher, a family member who helped along the way to expand that cycle of breaking generational poverty. Or maybe they want to purchase their childhood home. Whatever the reason may be, they are now being penalized for helping others.

I think it's controversial but I feel like retired people should be allowed to have their cabins.

again - a huttie or small camp site type thing is not a second home that im talking about. i would not consider that a 2nd home.

a place on the mountains in a vacation town on a culdesac with a hoa that you visit for a month each year is what im talking about. far far diff.

So do I, if they want to pay double the property tax 😊

No qualms here, have as many as they want. Just pay higher tax.

When you're in a housing shortage, you need to curtail slumlords and AirB&B activity or at the very least take the taxes from those markets to help build more affordable housing.

This is obviously a taunt but... Why?

Everyone is busy building more houses. People are buying them and renting them out and stupid high rates.

We have less of a housing shortage and more of a people buying houses as wealth vehicles problem.

Because you came out swinging with "I own two houses" Mr. Moneybags, lmao

This. Developers like to either get on city commissions or get their friends on them

Be careful who you vote for. And it ain’t always just one side screwing this up.

With the current trend of 2/3rds of housing kept empty for speculation, you'd probably buy and sell a house for uni (and probably make a profit instead of spending like 200k).

And also university already requires a shit load of capital? That's kinda the whole point, so poor people are poor for a "reason".

Also it'd be simple for university residences to explode it quality and quantity without the insane competition of the landlord market.

One of which had been laying vacant for 30 years and the other for nearly 50.

It's not like I had money gathering dust on the mantelpiece and bought mansions. I went out to buy what I nobody else would. Because it was too old, too shaby, too much of assle to fix.

They could just gift that friend $ to buy the house, instead of buying the house themselves

If you're buying up derelict properties, renovating them, and then selling them, you should get an exemption from property taxes entirely. Many communities already offer such exemptions, and even if they don't, you're getting a de facto exemption as it is because the houses aren't worth shit until you fix them up.