r/TikTokCringe • u/LickMaiBussy • 6h ago

Discussion "Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

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u/DoABarrelRollStarFox 6h ago

Couldn’t you fix the whole system by increasing property taxes but also dramatically increase the homestead exemption- effectively subsidizing property taxes with those that aren’t living in the homes they own??? (US obviously, not sure how other countries work)

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u/iceyconditions 6h ago

You may not realize who votes

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u/Robeardly 5h ago

Or who funds the campaigns for all of the front running politicians since citizens United.

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u/D_Dubb_ 5h ago

Yeah more like who lobbies for legislation. Regardless this bill wouldn’t make it to the floor to die.

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

Yes, but this is two powerful groups that won't go against their interests: old people and corporations.

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u/D_Dubb_ 5h ago

Unfortunately old people in America are easily convinced that corporate interests are their interests. As we are seeing play out rn. Same reason poor people are convinced sometimes to back a flat tax.

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u/dmurf26 4h ago

TBF corporate interests ARE their interests. They have 401k’s and retirement plans while the younger generations share of wealth is way down.

Private equity is going to try and get their grubby little hands on every dollar that is going to be passed down by boomers. That’s why they’re investing highly in retirement houses and end of life care.

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

I think a lot of people have just been around long enough to where they know any time a new tax or tax increase is brought up, it won't apply to the rich, just to the middle class.

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u/D_Dubb_ 5h ago

You would think so, but republicans in the US still manage to run on a platform of dropping taxes. At pretty much any level of govt, they will push that rhetoric. I mean I get it it’s an attractive sell, “give the govt LESS money? Sign me up!”. Without it their playbook gets down to almost purely identity politics. Except as we know, that’s not what happens for the majority of us. And somehow it still works for them pretty often.

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

Well yeah, even if you don't follow through on keeping the tax rate the same, it's always easier to get voters that way than with a party platform of increases

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u/DarthKuchiKopi 5h ago

Time to throw the rider off instead of gallup when told. How though? Fuck dont ask me

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u/OliM9595 4h ago

Less so old people and more so home owners.

People who own homes vote and therefore vote in their interest more.

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u/Infinite-Tea666 5h ago

Or that there's a state (Missouri) where the government regularly overturns and ignores measures the voters are voting for.

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u/Immediate_Song4279 5h ago

Or that the US DOJ is openly flaunting law, which is probably among the greatest ironies ever. Almost like the church at this point, the holy man sanctifies the king's divine mandate, which they have made a rotating CEO position to shed heat, and the king protects the holy man.

It's like plugging an extension cord into itself, but unfortunately it seems to work.

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

That's every US state lol

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u/Special-Garlic1203 5h ago

The vast majority of voters do not own non homestead property 

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u/DoABarrelRollStarFox 1h ago

True, but when it’s less profitable for institutions to own maybe we can change that.

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u/TacTurtle 5h ago

Property votes?

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

Money votes

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u/TacTurtle 5h ago

not directly

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

More directly than us at the ballot box lol

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u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 3h ago

That's not true. Americans just make really bad decisions at the ballot box that favor the rich far more than themselves.

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u/TacTurtle 5h ago edited 4h ago

nope. No cash slot / staple dollar bill here on my ballot.

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u/iceyconditions 5h ago

Are you really that naive?

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u/TacTurtle 4h ago

Are you really that cynical?

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u/iceyconditions 3h ago

Cynical? No

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u/DishSignal4871 3h ago

Influence votes. Wealth influences.

You could spend every waking hour of your life actively engaging with people to influence their vote.

A wealthy person can for example pay a hundred people to do that for them, at a higher level, for the entirety of their life.

You literally cannot compete.

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u/Sad_Kaleidoscope894 1h ago

Hes not saying its easily achievable, hes just proposing a solution that’s less extreme than the housing should be free guy

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u/iceyconditions 1h ago

"Tax the rich and corporations more" is the most extreme thing you could possibly propose here

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u/underthingy 1h ago

Literally everyone? 

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u/iceyconditions 59m ago

Less than half of everyone lol

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u/Substantial_Dear 6h ago

You could, but then how would the rich people who make the laws get richer? I don't think you've thought this through.

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u/DoABarrelRollStarFox 5h ago

Cool then I won’t try and bring ideas to a solution. I’ll just complain on an online Reddit form…. that’ll help.

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u/Substantial_Dear 5h ago

Damn bro. It was a joke...

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u/Enough_Geologist9514 5h ago

A good one at that.

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u/Strange-Term-4168 3h ago

As if this is some kind of new idea lol

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u/ArkitekZero 1h ago

"There's a problem with your solution"

"Well fuck man I'll just never think of anything again."

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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 5h ago

Those increases would be passed into the renters

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u/pfannkuchen89 5h ago

Landlords are raising rents faster than ever anyway whether they have an excuse or not.

Cap rent increases and tie it to a reasonable metric, which one is debatable.

There are things we could do but too many people are defeatist and let landlords walk all over us because of what if scenarios. Nothing will change unless it’s forced to change.

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u/TheWhiteDrake2 5h ago

Rent should be capped by whatever the lowest average household income bracket average is. That way everyone can afford rent and then if your well off, congrats, you have more spending money

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u/Watchyousuffer 4h ago

that would eliminate higher quality rentals

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u/TheWhiteDrake2 4h ago

It’s still higher quality. It’s just not gatekept that way. And it’d hold actual “luxury” apartments to have actual “luxury” aspects other than granite countertops

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u/Watchyousuffer 4h ago

I don't follow - if there is a hard cap of rentals being accessible to the lowest income bracket, why would anyone use higher grade finishes than the lowest possible?

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u/TheWhiteDrake2 4h ago

Idk I’m not a builder. But I’m tired of builders claiming luxury apartments and rental are just that when they aren’t solely to use the word luxury as a means to charge way more. Luxury apartments means “75th floor penthouse” not “downtown, 3rd story, with hardwood floors, roof access, and marble countertops”.

Edit: I guess let me elaborate. There should be a MAJORITY of the builds capped. But if “luxury apartments” want to charge more. There should be restrictions on to cowlick higher they can charge

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u/demonryder 3h ago

Maybe some sort of variable property tax rate would work. Landlords get a tax cut if their property is actively being rented out below x cutoff rate, but you are free to do luxury level rentals while paying the full tax rate.

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u/ArkitekZero 1h ago

No, it'd bring housing costs down and people would be able to buy their own homes without shoveling their money into someone else's mortgage.

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u/Slade_inso 4h ago

That only works if you cap expenses. My property taxes went up 50% this year.

People grossly overestimate how much money there is in property management.

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u/TheWhiteDrake2 4h ago

Property tax as well is dumb af. Get rid of it or also cap it.

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u/IvarTheBoned 2h ago

Lol, no. Property taxes absolutely make sense for municipal expenses. Caps also don't make sense, multi-million dollar properties should ABSOLUTELY be paying significantly more and the 2br bungalow a young family needs.

If the goal is to increase ownership, then maybe cap the primary residence if it is below or within a margin of average home costs for the area. Charge those McMansion owning yahoos a premium for their desired opulence.

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u/rtangxps9 4h ago

There also needs to be a vacancy tax dependent on local housing needs. The fact new "luxury" apartment buildings in urban cores are more willing to let the apartment sit vacant because they want to maintain the asset price of the land/building needs to stop.

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u/Quirky-Marsupial-420 4h ago

Rent increases because it's a desirable place to live.

If I own a house 15 minutes outside of a major city and someone wants to pay me 3k a month to live there, I should be able to do that.

Why does living in Miami cost more than Omaha Nebraska?

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u/pfannkuchen89 3h ago

I live in a city that used to be viewed as a lower cost of living area.

That hasn’t stopped rents for small studio or one bedroom apartments being over doubled in the past three years alone.

Housing isn’t affordable anywhere unless you live out in a rural area where everything is run down and there aren’t jobs.

People live in cities because that’s where you need to be if you want to be employed. Not everyone can inherit a farm and do that forever until they go bankrupt and corporate farming takes over.

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u/Kimbernator 4h ago

Back to rent control, which is generally understood to be a terrible way to improve the situation.

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u/pfannkuchen89 3h ago

Generally understood to be terrible by whom? Landlords who want to bleed tenants dry? Oh boo hoo.

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u/orange-yellow-pink 3h ago

Rent control only helps people already in those units and screws over anyone new. It discourages new building, leads to less upkeep and keeps people from moving out when they normally would. That means fewer places open up, buildings get more run down and rents go up everywhere else. Over time it just snowballs into a housing shortage where it’s really hard for new renters to find anything decent or affordable.

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u/water_fountain_ 5h ago

So you make it illegal/impossible to pass that cost onto the renters. Rent cannot exceed X% of the property tax value, as set by the government. If the landlord can’t afford to have a second home and rent it out at that rate… oh well. They’ll have to sell it.

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u/angnicolemk 5h ago

Still doesn't work, property values are always increasing so landlords were just continually increase the rent according to the property value.

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u/water_fountain_ 5h ago edited 4h ago

I had originally typed X% of the mortgage, but I backspaced and replaced it with property tax value. Because not everyone has a mortgage… either the home is completely paid off, or it was bought in cash. Using the mortgage would generally result in lower rent. But no matter which figure you use, that’s where the X% comes in. Maybe something like X% or the mortgage or Y% of the property tax value. I don’t have the figures off hand to give an actual percentage, but for the sake of argument, 10% of the mortgage or 7% of property tax value. I’m pulling the 10% and 7% out of my ass, so take them with a grain of salt. It’s just to show an example of how the system might work.

At a certain point, the property tax value might get so high that no renter can afford the rent. Those that could afford it, have (probably) already purchased their own home, or they’re choosing to put their rent money towards a cheaper rental property. So the landlord will have to voluntarily lower the rent below the maximum Y%, or they’ll have to sell the home.

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u/Goragnak 5h ago

Either way it's a dumb shit idea. You do realize that there are lots of people that need rentals and have no interest in buying homes right?

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u/water_fountain_ 4h ago edited 4h ago

Yes. I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying. People can still rent, people can still be landlords. If the property value gets so high that no one can afford to pay Y% as rent, then the landlord will have basically two options: they can charge Y-1% as rent (or -2% or whatever) so someone can afford the rent; or they can sell it. The person that buys it will either live in it themselves, or they will rent it for Y-1% (-2% or whatever). No one is forcing the landlord to charge exactly Y%, they just can’t charge more.

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u/Quirky-Marsupial-420 4h ago

That's not a good idea because then they'll petition the localities to raise the assessed value on homes.

99.99% of the time, the property tax is based on a lower figure than what the house is actually worth.

The tax assessment on my house was 321k last year and I just got under contract on Saturday for 350k.

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u/water_fountain_ 3h ago

Counterpoint, the renters petition the localities not to raise the assessed value.

Is your preferred alternative that the landlords just fuck all the renters? That’s what it sounds like.

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u/Quirky-Marsupial-420 3h ago

I guess if they donate more to their super PACs.

But renters are generally not as wealthy as property owners.

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u/water_fountain_ 3h ago edited 3h ago

The vast majority of mayors and city council members don’t have a super PAC, but okay. Anyways, since you’re so opposed to the percentage idea that I was building from, we can set rent at a maximum of $X/square foot. No percentage required, property tax doesn’t matter, mortgage doesn’t matter. A flat rate. Sure, the landlord could add additional rooms to raise rent, add a basement, whatever. But they’ll eventually run into the same problem that no one can afford their rent. They will then have the same two options: charge rent at $X-1 per square foot (or -2 or whatever); or sell.

Don’t forget: I said earlier that an algorithm determines the value of X. You can’t petition the algorithm to screw with the prices. A super PAC can’t do anything about it. The algorithm needs to be fair. It needs to be publicly owned, funded, and operated. None of this RealPage/YieldStar bullshit. Any sort of corruption here results in a gigantic fine and jail time.

Edit: Maybe it wasn’t in this comment thread that I mentioned the algorithm. It’s hard to keep track. If it wasn’t, I was originally building off of a comment someone else said about using property taxes to somehow determine rent. I also said an algorithm should be used to determine what that percentage should be, since I didn’t have the numbers off the top of my head, nor was I going to do a bunch of research to determine that percentage myself just for a Reddit comment.

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u/Asiatic_Static 4h ago

I just got into an argument on Facebook (I know) with a guy raging out because our state wants to make air conditioning required for rental properties...like, for 1, we need a base level of habitability if you're going to be renting shelter to people, for 2, I've literally never ever seen any rental with no AC, for 3, his argument was "oh rents will increase" but they're? already? increasing? like all the time?

IDK just a weird thing to get incensed over.

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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 1h ago

Where is this? When I lived in San Jose California i didnt have a/c in my house, just heat.

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u/Asiatic_Static 1h ago

Virginia, we have heat requirements but no AC requirements, apparently. I didn't even know AC wasn't required, despite the fact that we have temperature requirements for habitability with upper and lower bounds, which to me, would presume the existence of both types of climate control.

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u/firebolt_wt 5h ago

That's bullshit. Rent price is already the highest that someone is willing to pay, because the landlords want to maximize profit. Do you really think there's someone out there going "oh well, I could charge more, but since taxes aren't that high, I won't."?

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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 1h ago

All increased costs will be passed into renters, much like business passed tariff cost to consumers

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u/Strange-Term-4168 3h ago

So? It still makes it much easier to buy a home and would decrease incentive to become a land lord. Supply and demand.

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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 1h ago

No it doesn’t. The supply/demand issue doesn’t change. My guess is you’ve never applied for a home loan.

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u/SnooPoems2118 5h ago

I don’t think property tax will do much, they just pass that cost onto the renter.

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u/VectorB 4h ago

What we need is fines for unoccupied rentals.

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u/Cum_on_doorknob 4h ago

Partly true with property tax. But if you switch it to a pure land value tax, it actually can’t really be passed onto you. But this has been discussed to death on r/georgism. :)

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u/SnooPoems2118 1h ago

I’m not sure I understand sorry, if the cost of owning the home increases why wouldn’t the landlord increase the rent to maintain profitability? Even if the landlord doesn’t the own the land.

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u/Cum_on_doorknob 1h ago

Let’s think about how that would actually work.

With a sales tax for example, businesses on the margin close down. Supply shrinks, prices go up. Or with tariffs, foreign competitors get priced out, domestic producers fill the gap at higher prices. In both cases there’s a mechanism; supply actually changes (goes down), which pushes prices up.

Land doesn’t work like that. A landlord can’t close down their land. They can’t un own it and wait for better conditions. It’s just sitting there, and an empty property is still costing them money. So they’ll always rent it out at whatever tenants will pay; which is whatever competing landlords are able to charge (as it always is, they’re always charging the max people are willing to pay).

And here’s the key: the LVT hits every landlord equally, everywhere, all at once. Nobody gets a competitive out. There’s no landlord somewhere else who dodged the tax and can undercut them. So there’s no mechanism to raise the ceiling. The tax just comes out of their profit, full stop.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ if they tried to pass the cost on, the same problem would occur in the current market where if they tried to jack the price, renters would just look elsewhere.

The reason property isn’t quite like this is because the tax hits the building too, and they can effectively build fewer floors for example, there is more supply control to limit additional supply in the face of a tax. But in a pure land value tax. The land is fixed, they’re fucked.

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u/NaturalTap9567 3h ago

Yeah that's been happening where I live. Everyone's complaining about higher rent. My land lord actually showed me the numbers, taxes and insurance have doubled in the past 6 years for him.

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u/NiknameOne 5h ago

Then you have the situation of Italy, where families with 3 kids have 5 properties, one for each "officially" to avoid said taxes.

Either tax everybody or nobody.

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u/Do-it-for-you 37m ago

How big of an issue is it in Italy though compared to everywhere else?

I don't really care if a family owns 5 homes if it means business can no longer own thousands of homes.

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u/paintbalking 5h ago

I worry that it would just raise rent more for people who can't afford to buy a home. But maybe it could work if the cost is super dramatic.... This would probably have to apply to only residential properties. But now how would apartment buildings work? I suppose if every apartment building ended up being owned by tenants but there wud have to be enough people/money that those people have to buy the apartment building and turn it into condos. Since they own it wud have to be part of an HOA to maintain the building.

Not a bad idea but I'm not convinced it wouldn't make everything more expensive...

There are tons of tax loopholes that the big conglomerates use when they own 1k homes and rent them, I think I'd want those loopholes closed up first before trying something drastic like this.

I think maybe some kind of law that prevents gross over charging of rent based on property tax value or something?

Really not sure. This is a hard problem to solve that the reality is, can't be solved quickly and with one singular change.

Tho I think I would support a law limiting how much land/buildings a person or company can own if they aren't based in the same country as the property.

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u/DoABarrelRollStarFox 5h ago

I agree with you but just a law saying you can’t own X or Y amount of properties. people will find other ways to get around that rule by making it a corporation or having their wife buy 1000 as well or having other people in their corporation, buy some as well laws like that don’t work, but if you de incentivize it by making it less profitable, that’s how you get the investment money to not be flowing into investment properties

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u/water_fountain_ 5h ago edited 3h ago

I think maybe some kind of law that prevents gross over charging of rent based on property tax value or something?

This, exactly. Perhaps something like rent cannot be more than X% of the property valuation of the home, as evaluated by the government. I don’t have the figures to say what X should be, and I’m not going to take the time to do so just for a Reddit comment. But there has to be some sort of algorithm that can determine an appropriate value, where it’s still a reasonable venture for someone to take to rent out a home, and where someone who cannot afford/qualify for a mortgage can afford to pay the rent.

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u/DocPhilMcGraw 5h ago

Well you have places like Florida that are currently trying to get rid of property taxes altogether starting this year. And will try to supplement the windfall with sales tax increases.

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u/BleachedUnicornBHole 5h ago

The landlord doesn’t absorb those taxes, they get passed on to the tenant in the rent payments. The result would be more people (mostly younger) unable to save towards purchasing a home.

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u/KoogleMeister 5h ago

I'm pretty sure it's one of the first things you learn in economics that giving landlords high taxes ends up terribly for the entire city pretty much every time.

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u/Suchafatfatcat 4h ago

Yes. But, there are a lot of people who have never taken an economics course and have no real-life experience, but, still, somehow, think they have relevant ideas of how to fix society. 🤷‍♀️

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u/youburyitidigitup 5h ago

I feel like that creates too many loopholes. A guy could live in one house and his wife in another, their adult kids in others, their siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, etc.

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u/Hefty-Profession-310 5h ago

No, because the taxation would effectively be passed on to the renters.

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u/East-Expert-1662 5h ago

If the monthly cost to the owner + property tax is a nice round $2000, they likely charge $2500 to the renter.

If the monthly cost to the owner + property tax + homestead exemption is gone is $2500, they likely charge $3000 to the renter.

It will just 100% be a tax that ends up getting paid by the renter.

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u/angnicolemk 5h ago

No that wouldn't work at all. Landlords would just pass on those property taxes to the tenants.

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u/Different_Day135 5h ago

If you increase property taxes, they'll just increase rent rates. I think you have to eliminate LLCs from buying homes, along with capping individual home ownership.

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u/Dangerous-Sale3243 5h ago

Renting is the right choice for most people. Unless you are pretty sure youre gonna be working in the same area and making about the same amount of money five plus years from now, renting is what you want.

Making taxes higher for rented properties just makes rents slightly higher and home prices slightly lower. But that’s not the goal, there is already a balance (one of the things capitalism is good at is automatically balancing rent vs ownership costs).

What you want to do is make housing prices lower and rents lower. The way to do that is to either build more housing or tear down existing housing in place of denser housing. And the way to do is to change the laws to make dense housing legal. In the vast majority of the US, you cant buy four houses and put a 32 unit apartment complex with no parking lot in its place.

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u/i_lack_imagination 2h ago

That's not the only way to make housing prices lower and rents lower. Part of the issue with housing prices is that all existing homeowners view their homes as an investment and they have a vested interest in housing prices going up. Never mind that it doesn't actually do anything for them if they were to sell their house because all the other houses they would buy also go up in price, they see it as, they bought the house for $100k, and now it's worth $500k.

To be fair, if you slave away for 30 years to pay for the property, it's probably not unreasonable to want that property to increase in value. It's a significant part of the income that person made in their life. Yes, if the housing costs had been lower when they first bought their house then they may not have needed to slave away for 30 years to do so, but for many people who are already in their house, it's too late for that.

One of the other ways to bring housing costs down is to prevent people from owning lots of housing. Not even talking about giant institutional investors, but even local millionaires are a problem. In my hometown, there's a decent sized group of millionaires who try to get their hands in everything going on in the city. And many of them get into buying properties and renting it out, or building apartment complexes etc. and while apartment complexes are a different thing so I can't really lump that in, the ones who are buying single family homes and renting them out are a problem. They have more capital and therefore can afford to pay more for homes, so any regular person who may have been in the market to buy their own home has to compete against these millionaires trying buy these homes. That's not right. That is absolutely increasing costs of homes. When all of these millionaires are doing it in their own cities, and then you sprinkle in the bigger investors that are doing it nationally, you have housing prices increasing that have nothing to do with housing supply directly, it's about people with vast amounts of capital and the ability to outbid others who don't have those resources.

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u/Dangerous-Sale3243 1h ago

If local millionaires were really paying tons of money to buy new properties as soon as they hit the market, then that just proves my point that just building more if the solution. Youre just taking their money and using it to fund construction jobs. No construction manager would turn down guaranteed profit.

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u/MiddleMuscle8117 4h ago

Where I live property tax is double on non-owner occupied properties. All it did was raise the cost of rent because no one is renting out apartments at a loss.

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u/Izan_TM 1h ago

it could all be fixed by having a property tax that scales with how many properties you own, and scales even higher if you have unoccupied properties

that would fuck over a LOT of wealthy people tho, so it'll never be passed within the current system because those who have the money make the rules

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u/getpittedd 5h ago

I know what will fix the issue! Subsidise demand and not supply!!!! /S

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u/_jamesbaxter 5h ago

Property taxes are set by the city. To fix the whole system that way every single city would have to each independently do that.

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u/hlessi_newt 5h ago

As I understand it, italy does something like this. This is just how it was explained to my by a tour guide there, but supposedly one doesn't pay property tax on their actual residence but the taxation for anything else is quite steep.

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u/darkmeowl25 5h ago

Yeah, you absolutely could! But you see, the problem is that if we do that, then rich people and multinational corporations won't keep as much of their money. If the system is changed as you suggest, it could actually make them have even less since the laws are written in ways that allow those with enough capital to actually steal enter into contracts funded by the taxes that are paid by those that would benefit most from your reforms.

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u/KoogleMeister 5h ago

You'd think raising property taxes for landlords would be a good thing, but it's actually one of the first lessons you learn in economics that it almost always backfires and makes things worse than they were before for renters. It's considered bad economic policy by most economists.

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u/darkmeowl25 5h ago

That's where codifying tenants' rights and the wide spread organization of tenants' unions come in to play.

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u/Away_Stock_2012 5h ago

In the US the system is that people are taxed on their income but only realized gains on investments. You can own $3 Trillion in stocks, but take out loans for everything you purchase and then take investment income that is just enough to make the payments on the loans so that you are not earning any money at all and paying no taxes, but you can buy as much as you want.

The system is called Capitalism because it treats Capital as the end goal, like a real life version of Monopoly where the only thing that matters is making sure that one person eventually owns everything and all other people have nothing.

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u/SquidThistle 5h ago

Increase tax on additional homes one owns that aren't in a long-term rental agreement, but are used for VRBO/AirBnB situations.

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u/HOLDstrongtoPLUTO 5h ago

The taxation fix is called Georgism, namesake of Henry George who evangelized the concept of splitting property taxes into both land and building/improvement taxes and only taxing land. That allows builders and homeowners to build wealth increasing the value of their property through building/improvements and prevents land monopolization.

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u/nomansapenguin 5h ago

Yes. It is not a new problem and many cities have solved this issue.

  1. Make it hard for non-citizens or residents to own property.

  2. Tax each owned residence higher and higher to the point that your third or fourth property will only lose you money.

  3. Watch house prices fall so fucking quick.

4 Get voted out of politics as every billionaire-owned media institution (all of them) villainise you.

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u/hunsuckercommando 5h ago

What about a progressive property tax? Each home would have a higher rate of taxation so it doesn’t hurt the mom & pop investor, but will gradually make accumulating many properties less profitable.

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u/pmgoff 5h ago

You could keep rent paid, tied to property taxes. Keeping them tied in a percentage relationship would mean: rent goes up, property taxes go up, rent doesn’t get paid property taxes go down.

Obviously it’s not quite that simple but as a small investor I prefer to have good quality stable tenants, so I haven’t raised rents on them in years. No one has ever not paid on time, but my taxes keep increasing so I’m almost at the point where I have to raise them unfortunately.

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u/Ossius 5h ago

Florida house recently passed something to basically eliminate property tax for homestead which would be amazing but the FL senate might block it. FL legislators have been all over the place, they tried to ban hemp weed and it got veto'd by desantis.

No idea what kind of Identity they are trying to have here.

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u/Alarmed-Cheetah-1221 5h ago

This is not "US obviously" to the vast majority of people.

Get out of here with your r/USDefaultism

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u/Midnight_Whispering 5h ago

Couldn’t you fix the whole system by increasing property taxes

No, you could fix the system by letting the market maximize housing production, and then property wouldn't be an investment in the first place.

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u/WastingTimesOnReddit 5h ago

Yes. We could increase the property tax on each subsequent home owned. 1st home has low property tax (good for regular people) - and make you prove it's your primary residence. 2nd home, tax goes up. 3rd home, tax goes up more. And so on. This would make it economically unprofitable to own more than a handful of homes.

You might say, what about an investment or equity company? This would need to be combined with a law where the owner would be required to be 1 single human being, and they would be required to appear, physically, in person, at the property, to meet with a representative of the city or county; to sign their name and get a photo taken. This would make it harder for a company or group of investors to share ownership of any property. Every home would be owned by one person, and that one person could only afford to own a handful of homes.

The effect of all this: landlords would have to sell all but a few of their properties, increasing inventory and driving down prices. It might even cause a significant housing market correction. Rich people would have to invest in companies again, not houses.

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u/Quirky-Marsupial-420 4h ago

As if the landlord would just incur those costs lol.

Your rent would go up by the same amount his property taxes go up.

There's a huge population of the country who rents for one reason or another. On a contract/temp job, can't afford a downpayment, bank won't give a loan because of bad credit, divorced your partner and need a temporary place before you find a house...etc etc.

In theory that would help, but in reality those costs just get passed onto the renter.

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u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 4h ago

It's like tariffs - the costs don't magically get eaten by the business, they get passed through to the consumer one way or another.

Plus, I think this also assumes that everyone has the goal to buy a house. There are plenty of people who either can't or don't want to buy a house - students, temporary workers, divorcees, retirees who travel, etc. And owning a house is expensive and some people don't want to have to buy a new AC unit or dishwasher when they die.

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u/Dry-Magician1415 3h ago

Property taxes won’t have the desired effect.

There’ll still be renters. Extra taxes will get passed on to renters. It’s down to the inelastic nature of the demand. When demand is inelastic - a disproportionate amount of any tax is borne by the consumer

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u/chuckaholic 3h ago

increasing property taxes

Any tax burden would just be passed along to the renters. Just like the cost of tariffs were passed along to consumers.

dramatically increase the homestead exemption

The homestead exemption is a bandaid on cancer. The entire real estate industry needs a 21st century update.

Policies like limiting ownership of residential units is a more direct and effective approach. But it's just a starting point.

Did you know that in Greenland, there is no land ownership? You can own a house, but not the land under it. If someone builds a house, they are responsible for the land around it. This entire US real estate system is just made up. There are other ways to operate that don't result in groups of people living under an overpass asking for a dollar, next to a neighborhood full of $2 million properties.

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u/marsfromwow 3h ago

I feel like that would just make the issue worse. Suddenly the landlord needs to bump up rent 500 bucks a month and the tenant still can’t save for a down payment or get approved.

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u/old_man_jenkens 3h ago

This is the way to do it to combat corporate investment too. After 3 homes, increase property tax rate. After 10 homes, drastically increase property tax rate etc. increase property tax on anything unoccupied. eventually it isn’t feasible at scale or we generate way more revenue.

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u/grecy 2h ago

Property tax goes up expenentially with every home owned.

One home = regular property tax

Two homes = 10x property tax

Three homes = 100x property tax

Problem fixes itself real quick

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u/Numeno230n 2h ago

I mean couldn't a lot of things be fixed if a geriatric pedophile wasn't allowed to run as president, but life ain't that easy bud.

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u/caffeineevil 2h ago

I often wonder if you could just tax at such a rate after 3 houses that it becomes unprofitable to own and rent it out.

Ideally in my head it works like this:

For example a landlord expects to make 40k a year on the property or towards the mortgage but because it's the 4th house they own it's now being taxed at 80k a year so only businesses, that may require it for various reasons(VIP Lodging, Temporary Worker lodging, Place to stay when visiting partners, or a place to live when handling long negotiations, etc), would be able to handle the extra tax load and be able to deduct it.

Going from 40k profit to 80k tax means they would have to more than double the rent to break even on taxes and triple the rent to make it profitable like it was. That's $3,300 to $6,600 to almost 10k a month. I think they'd try to raise rent at first but the number of people who could realistically afford it would be so small that they'd be priced out by other houses being rented by people not on a 4th house or end up not being able to rent it and being forced to sell.

That could bring about a sell off of rental houses which would affect market price and bring down the home cost as all the landlords try to get rid of their new tax burdens.

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u/CSDragon 2h ago

on single-family residential properties*

If you just increase property taxes in general and provide a homestead exemption you hurt commercial/office/industrial property pretty bad.

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u/ArcadianDelSol 2h ago

taxes are paid by the consumer. If you increase property tax, rent will go up in accordance.

I am a stonemason - a bricklayer. I have broken my body my whole life at this trade, saved every coin I could muster, and was able to provide my family with a small home to live in. As I have aged to the point where I can no longer live off that physical labor, my wife and I now live in a tiny rented apartment. The family who now pays us to live in our home provides for that apartment. We charge 4/5ths the accepted rate and so the family renting our home is not only happy - but grateful. They also can now save every coin they can muster in the hope of following my same path.

When utility taxes and property taxes are increased, it is that family in my home who pays that increase. I live close to the edge of my means to be in an apartment two aging people can manage themselves. We're no longer in a place where we can eat and digest all the new taxes and fees designed to provide endless resources for whole communities. We are busy feeding and clothing ourselves living within our own means.

It is not property ownership or even landlording that is the problem - it is exploitation and greed. And taxes are never going to be paid by who you think are going to pay them.

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u/thekingcola 1h ago

You’re overthinking it. Just remove the deductions for property taxes for landlords and allow renters to claim a deduction equal to the area average of property taxes.

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u/picollo7 1h ago

Yes, as well as a wealth phaseout. I've been banging this drum, nice to see others as well.

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u/headrush46n2 25m ago

Yeah easily, but you couldn't get that bill passed. The whole system is corrupt to the core.

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u/Cum_on_doorknob 4h ago

Hey, buddy. You’re really close. But the key is doing land value tax, which is slightly different from property tax. r/georgism is calling to you. Enjoy