3 houses could be free (1 home, 1 for summer, 1 for winter)
Comment on Grandma is on her own
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks agoOne issue with the holiday home thing, they tend to be in quite remote places where there are very few job opportunities, because that’s where people go on holiday.
BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Nah fam you got three homes you can pay up
BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Don’t forget how many people own three homes in the first place. You might need their votes.
Also, if one inherits their grandparents home and wants to give it their own children but must wait for 2-3 years, they might be forced to sell too.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
The number of people who have three homes on this country I doubt is a huge number. And to be honest most of them are probably right-leaning anyway.
chocrates@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Shit good point. Through multiple deaths I am a fractional owner of 3 properties, and I can't afford to be a homeowner
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you can afford 3 houses, you can afford the extra tax on 2 or all 3 of them. And if you can’t, maybe you don’t need hat many fucking houses…
thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The problem that there are many homeless outweighs the problem that somebody wants to have a holiday home. Soliving the homeless problem by not solving the holiday home problem is valid.
Zink@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I think many people (USians in particular) need to have it described to them this simply.
It’s just assumed in so many situations that somebody’s right to enjoy their legally-acquired property supercedes any concerns about the life or suffering of others living in the same system.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
property rights do outweigh the suffering of cityfolk
BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This is true, but if I take the top comment, we have 28 houses/homes per homeless person - subtract the 2 holiday homes and you still got 25
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Buy 25 homes, get a free homeless person.
basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
This part applies. It’s not about directly getting a house for the homeless in this case, it’s the fact that they can CLEARLY afford to pay more tax.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
My extended family in Michigan keeps a hunting cabin that they split costs between 5 people on and can still barely make the mortage… Is that clearly able to afford more taxes?
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
I’d sacrifice your family’s hunting cabin if it helps house more people. Find a sixth person or something.
It’s an edge case that shouldn’t hold up societal progress.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The added tax revenue would also make the rural places these vacation home are in more sustainable for regular residents. And probably keep local governments and even small hospitals solvent.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
No, it shouldn’t hold up societal progress. But not being aware of how your policies actually affect people is just plain bad. I agree with progressive taxes on multi house ownership, but you also need to understand that will mean people who are less rich than you think losing them, it’s not just people that can afford them
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Not really, but it sounds like your family should rather sell that cabin and spend their money on more importsbt things.
chocrates@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
I know for the public good this is the right answer but this is not a winning strategy
AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Or if housing costs were reigned in via this measure would the costs they are burdened with that make it barely feasible for 5 families to split the mortgage cost on a hunting cabin in a remote rural area be alleviated. Granting them more financial freedom, benefiting society all while still keeping the place thats becoming nearly untenable for them due to outrageous real estate markets?
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
They can barely split it because they’re all broke af not because the house is expensive. The house and land are pretty cheap
rayyy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Simply exempt small homes. For instance, those with less than 1,600 square feet or so.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
Most people aren’t homeless because there is no house available no.
You want to tax just having that second home
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s amazing how I can add the word “affordable” to your statement and you’re suddenly wrong.
You see this as wanting to tax second homes while ignoring that tons of people are homeless because they can’t afford to live somewhere because of shitheads holding onto empty housing as an investment at the expense of the common person.
So yeah, let’s tax any house left unoccupied for more than half the year. If you can afford to have 2 houses, you can afford to pay more for the one you don’t live in so maybe we can free up some of them and lower the cost of housing.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
There will still be a lot of people homeless even with affordable houses since they most likely cannot afford a house. Social housing doesn’t have to be affordable, it just needs to be there, but that has little to do with the availability of houses and more the amount of people that can be processed by the system. At least in NL.
The issue all around the globe is people owning more than one house. You can only live in one so they rent them out. Generally asking way to much since they took a mortgage for it, costs are deductable against the profit. So you always end up paying the mortgage rate for the house you rent + a profit margin for the owner.
If you stop people having 2, 3 or more houses or at least make it a lot less likely for people to own more than one. In NL some people are also debating if we should remove the deductibility of mortgage rates.
Houses costing 1m or more being empty doesn’t do anything for the homeless, they will not be able to afford that. A lot of the houses in the empty house statistics are include houses being built/renovated/destroyed etc. Heck in the US (and other countries) you have some ghost towns, are those counted as well? Or houses that are rented out for tourists? How many of them where empty for more than 6 months?
Taxing empty houses is fine, don’t get me wrong, but the not building medium density houses, places where you can walk and/or bike and actually want to live, the lack of social security and people owning 2 or more houses are issues as well.