cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162
Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there’s still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.
Landlords should pay 100% tax on their empty rentals.
You’ll see how fast they will accept any and all new tenants, at a much lower price.
Which would also flood the market with housing, lowering the prices even more until renting becomes an actual beneficial option compared to buying and paying off a loan.
Real estate would also not be seen as an investment anymore.
They should pay 100% tax on all rentals.
Real estate should be considered an investment. It’s one of the few things people invest in that is actually valuable. It’s the speculative and labrynthine financial markets that are the problem in that regard.
The only reason mega-renters like Blackrock and Vanguard are able to monolithically buy property in the first place is because of dubious speculative earnings and government bailouts.
It’s not surprising that home ownership was actually a lot higher 60 years ago.
People require to land to live on, it is a basic necessity, and basic necessities absolutely should not be considered an investment.
What should people invest in then? How is land ownership handled? Etc etc etc
Literally any other type of business.
People should still be able to own land for their own personal use. Land used to extract wealth on the other hand should be more tightly controlled. We should ideally implement georgism to free up the land that the rich own and to increase land use efficiency. After that ownership should look pretty much identical.
You’ve just eliminated perhaps the safest, most attainable method for the average person to achieve passive income.
Other than living on it, why would someone want to own land?
If the “safest most attainable way” to get wealth requires others to be homeless or unable to afford a basic necessity then it isn’t not worth it.
And it arguably isn’t the most attainable way, because so many people are being priced out of owning a home because of the current system’s failures.
To use it for a business or enjoyment. I’m not sure where you are going with this.
This is wealth extraction
So you’re okay with some rich person owning acreage as long as it’s for their own enjoyment but not for a normal dude who has an investment property and is holding out for a renter that will adequately cover his costs and generate some profit?
Yup. I’m ok with some kinds, just not the kind that fucks over the creation/distribution of basic necessities.
Yeah that’s bullshit too and shouldn’t be allowed. Even for personal use/enjoyment there should be a hard limit.
That’s bullshit too.
And? Should we be trying to help people earn income for doing dick all?
Yeah because they just plucked the property off of a tree… people often work years and years to get enough for a property investment and it can take 30 years to pay it off. Throughout all that time they are responsible for maintenance, insurance and a litany of other things to keep it from falling into disrepair.
It can take 30 years for the tenants to pay it off. Landlords aren’t paying for that out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s instead ultimately the tenants.
They hire people to do that, they don’t do it themselves.
What do you think “passive” means in the term “passive income”? I don’t care if it becomes harder to earn “passive income”, especially if it’s coming from people just doing what is necessary to survive.
But why should it be anything but a personal investment? I’m not seeing your point there. Isn’t it better for everyone to decommodify housing?
What do mean? I don’t see how what I said negates that.
Not really no. Commodfication is why things used to be cheap. High [insert item here] prices are directly related to money printing, corporate welfare and regulations that are designed to raise the barrier of entry for normal people.
Commodifying things makes them cheap? As opposed to decommodifying? That makes no sense
What is an example of decommodifying?
Nationalized healthcare
Making something unsuitable for investment so we preserve its primary function (houses being a home to a family and not an airbnb or an empty rental).
Why should it be an investment at all?
So that people can decouple their time from their earning power.
Why should a human necesssity be an investment?
Because there is more than enough for everyone.
There’s more than enough housing that everyone can afford to own? Why are there homeless people then?
So, so many reasons…
At the individual level drugs are a HUGE reaaon, mental illness, poor care for veterans etc Although there is SOME government housing and charitable housing for people that need it.
At a macro level there is money printing, endless war, corporate welfare, cronyism etc
Let’s face it though we could probably house everyone in Europe within South Dakota alone. Not to mention most homeless people are in extremely expensive areas like LA, Austin, Seattle and New York.
Passing an ill-conceived law that will have unintended consequences should be way, way low on the list of ways to lower housing prices. Especially since it’s highly likely it won’t be enforced properly.
Its interesting that you say drugs and mental illness are the problems. Isn’t the fact that housing is commodified and costs money the HUGE problem? They can’t afford it, is the reason they’re homeless. The way you’re making it look is that the problem is just them, which is an extremely dehumanizing starement, especially when you are ignoring the obvious answer that’s its because some people are allowed to profit off of others need for shelter.
Are you a libertarian? The way you bring up printing money, cronyism, ill-conceived laws etc. sounds like you might be
Really butchering the language here to not say “passive income” or “making other people work for me”
I don’t have a problem with either one of those things so pick your favorite.
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You forget that for one to acquire said property one must first “exploit” one’s self. What I do with the earnings from my exploitation is my business.
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Housing can be affordable, or it can be an investment. Not both.
Why would I build a house if I can’t make money on it?
…to live in…
Obviously not talking about a property I intend to live in and not sell…
Because you want a nice house to live in?
Building should be profitable, owning should be of limited profitability.
All you’ve done is move the point I’m arguing to the building process instead of renting.
Building is separate from owning.
In this case landlords could just pay some money to fake tenants to make their rentals appear occupied (at a ridiculously low price). Rental prices could even rise because of free rentals number reduction and necessity to cover additional expenses.
100% on $0
Genius
100% on their rental value, which for many landlords is directly tied to massive loans they’re underwater on. That’s why they’d rather have unoccupied rentals with nominally high values than reduce the rental price to match the market and have their loans called in.
The rental value would be $0.
Contrary to lemmy.world logic, 0% of 0 is 0
No, the rental value is the nominal price of the rental. This is extremely simple, a child could understand this. The landlords have gotten loans based on the assumed rental income, which is not $0.
They aren’t making any income on rent. So what % would an income tax have to be to be >0$ exactly?
Seriously? OK, you must not really have thought about this before. They are listing their properties for rent but nobody is renting them. They’re listing those properties at the nominal rental value. So the tax would be on that nominal rental cost. This is like, babytown frolics level simple to connect the dots on even if you don’t agree with it - understanding this should have clicked like two replies back.
They make 0$, so how is it an “income” tax
nominal income
nominal income
nominal income
you’re welcome to disagree but wasting this much time pretending to not understand is just childish, have a very nice day weirdo
It didn’t work this way in the real world.
I’d be so angry if I found out a nusince neighbor was paying less rent than I was.