Simply exempt small homes. For instance, those with less than 1,600 square feet or so.
Comment on Grandma is on her own
basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks agoIf you can afford a second home, you can afford to pay a bit more tax on it to benefit the public good.
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.
rayyy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 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 3 weeks ago
Most people aren’t homeless because there is no house available
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 3 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.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 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 3 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 3 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.
AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It might even alleviate the financial burdens that are making that situation almost untenable for them now as real estate markets are corrected and added tax revenue gets allocated into public benefits that could reduce the cost of living. They may benefit from the proposal even if tax rates get increased on subsequent properties.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 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
AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Or does the correction in housing pricing lower their actual taxes paid in total on their main properties, granting them more breathing room, allowing them to comfortably afford the hunting lodge even if the rate itself has increased? You’re expecting everything else to remain the same and just increased tax rates as a whole. Something like this would readjust the market values of properties and the subsequent tax being paid while making sure those corporations hoarding properties are taxed appropriately and providing inventory into a market that would bring pricing back down to earth. The rate could be increased but total paid could be lowered in these cases of second homes so long as tax increase is exponential and not flat on additional properties. The goal of measures like this would be to make companies hoarding thousands of properties an untenable option not to hurt every person who might look into having a second or third property.
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 3 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 3 weeks ago
I know for the public good this is the right answer but this is not a winning strategy
AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.works 3 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 3 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
AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yes and housing costs still take the largest chunk of low income people’s income. This wouldnt only effect the costs associated with the cabin but also their main residence’s taxes as well. Collected taxes might be used to improve public infrastructure and benefit programs which could also alleviate some of their expenses, giving them more ability to afford the cabin and have spending potential in other areas of their life. It’s not a zero sum game.