"We have seen corporate landlords—who own a larger share of the rental market than ever before—use inflation as an excuse to hike rents and reap excess profits beyond what should be considered fair and reasonable."
We should make owning residential, single family real estate for commercial purposes illegal. You own it, you live in it, don’t live in it, don’t own it. That would make gobbling up houses and renting them out unprofitable and force cities to open up multifamily development
That sounds nice in theory but what happens when you want to sell your house?
The only potential buyers would be people who either currently rent or are ready to sell their old house as soon as they buy yours.
What if someone wants to fix it up first? Nope, they can’t do it. It will cut out the flippers but we’ve also just cut out all the renovators and restorers.
We could do something like this (and it may not be a terrible idea) but there will definitely be a cost. If we add that law, all the people who currently own homes (that includes both investors and owner occupiers) will see the value of their real estate holdings drop. In the US, over 65% of people own their homes and for most of them, their home is their single biggest asset. Richer people can diversify more so while this law wouldn’t hurt the 35% who don’t currently own homes, it will disproportionately affect the poorer end of the 65% homeowners (who have proportionately more of their savings tied up in their home).
If we don’t also address that problem at the same time we’ll create a cohort of people who can’t afford to retire because we killed their plan of downsizing when their kids move out and living off the difference.
I’m assuming OP intends to specifically exclude rental companies. As near as I can tell this plan would also exclude individual renters.
Not sure how that would play out if someone wanted to defray the cost of their home by renting out a room or subdividing their home.
Do you not maintain the things that you own just because there will never be a day where it is worth 10x what you paid for it?
Btw I really want to meet these flippers and landlords who are maintaining their homes. Every time I have dealt with one they are obsessed with making it look like the house is great, not actually maintaining it. Oh wow you sprayed cookie dough smell before showing it, hey check out that black mold in the basement that stupidly has fucking sheetrock.
How about instead of banning it we heavily disincentivize it? After 2 properties you pay 50% in property tax. This allows people to rent out homes to college kids and people saving for a home, without allowing vultures to pick at the bones of the middle class
I live in a rented house, and I’ve rented out a house I owned because I wanted to move and I was underwater on my mortgage. I get where you’re coming from but I do think there should be exceptions. Maybe just capping the rent at 110% of the mortgage payment or 0.5% of the appraised value would be enough to allow some rentals while discouraging people to buy houses just to rent them out.
We should make owning residential, single family real estate for commercial purposes illegal. You own it, you live in it, don’t live in it, don’t own it. That would make gobbling up houses and renting them out unprofitable and force cities to open up multifamily development
That sounds nice in theory but what happens when you want to sell your house?
The only potential buyers would be people who either currently rent or are ready to sell their old house as soon as they buy yours.
What if someone wants to fix it up first? Nope, they can’t do it. It will cut out the flippers but we’ve also just cut out all the renovators and restorers.
We could do something like this (and it may not be a terrible idea) but there will definitely be a cost. If we add that law, all the people who currently own homes (that includes both investors and owner occupiers) will see the value of their real estate holdings drop. In the US, over 65% of people own their homes and for most of them, their home is their single biggest asset. Richer people can diversify more so while this law wouldn’t hurt the 35% who don’t currently own homes, it will disproportionately affect the poorer end of the 65% homeowners (who have proportionately more of their savings tied up in their home).
If we don’t also address that problem at the same time we’ll create a cohort of people who can’t afford to retire because we killed their plan of downsizing when their kids move out and living off the difference.
What about rental companies? Who can you rent from? If you can only lose money or break even this would destroy any reason to maintain a home.
I’m assuming OP intends to specifically exclude rental companies. As near as I can tell this plan would also exclude individual renters. Not sure how that would play out if someone wanted to defray the cost of their home by renting out a room or subdividing their home.
Do you not maintain the things that you own just because there will never be a day where it is worth 10x what you paid for it?
Btw I really want to meet these flippers and landlords who are maintaining their homes. Every time I have dealt with one they are obsessed with making it look like the house is great, not actually maintaining it. Oh wow you sprayed cookie dough smell before showing it, hey check out that black mold in the basement that stupidly has fucking sheetrock.
This is the most beautiful strawman I’ve ever seen. Well done!
How about instead of banning it we heavily disincentivize it? After 2 properties you pay 50% in property tax. This allows people to rent out homes to college kids and people saving for a home, without allowing vultures to pick at the bones of the middle class
I live in a rented house, and I’ve rented out a house I owned because I wanted to move and I was underwater on my mortgage. I get where you’re coming from but I do think there should be exceptions. Maybe just capping the rent at 110% of the mortgage payment or 0.5% of the appraised value would be enough to allow some rentals while discouraging people to buy houses just to rent them out.
And cut into profits!? How very un-American of you. String’em up boys!!