Think about what the investment company's tax rate would look like. They'd be bankrupt instantly. They'd have to pay 10M/year in taxes to maintain ownership of $10M in property.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 points 3 days ago

Sounds like a problem for the renters.

[–] piratekaiser@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That's not how this works. A better solution would be to tax more aggressively second+ homes and severely limit what corporations can invest into.

Why should a company be able to profit off of second hand housing? This isn't a commodity, but it's treated as such. Companies should be able to build new housing (for sale) and own housing only for the purposes of, say, housing their employees if they so wish. I simply see no benefits to allowing companies trade living spaces like stocks.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

What does someone deserve to own? The value created by your own work yes, but nobody deserves to own natural resources like land more than anybody else. The whole point is that you get to decide how much the property is worth to you. If it's worth more to someone else, you're both better off for the trade. The only losers here are people trying to cheat on their taxes by giving a "low" appraisal, and people trying to hoard multiple properties.

Plug some numbers into that formula. If you own a $100k property, you pay 1k in taxes/year If you own 10 of those properties, you pay 100k/year. This would mean you have to charge more in rent than a mortgage would cost to buy the same property. The business model would become unprofitable.

[–] piratekaiser@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I understand the logic of it, my point is that this is a trust/honesty based system which leaves you cornered. Here are some problems with it:

placing a low value on my house to pay less taxes exposes me to a hostile buyout
placing a realistic (e.g. around average for the region) price doesn't solve the previous problem. I'm still in danger of a hostile buyout, while also paying higher taxes. What's more, even if everyone else plays fairly, this additional % someone else paid to take my house is now the minimum added on top of their own valuation, driving prices up.
placing an unreachably high price would bankrupt me as I can't pay the taxes, so there is no scenario in which this works out for me
given a realistic and unequal economy, there will be those who can't afford to place a higher price on their house, i can just go and buy them out on sale, then rent them back to them (that one might sound familiar)

The fault in your assumption is 1. that this would discourage corporations from buying up; and 2. That you live in an equal and just society;

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The fault in your assumption is 1. that this would discourage corporations from buying up;

Did you plug in some numbers to see how much you pay when you own multiple homes? Rental units are not profitable when people can buy a house for cheaper than your property taxes on the same property. And normal people can do hostile buyouts from corporate landords too.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They can just increase rents then?

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So rent is several times more expensive than a mortgage on the same property. Now what?

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Now you pay the ridiculous rent because blackstone just buys up entire neighborhoods already, might as well buy up entire towns.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Why? You can force them to sell you a property and pay less on the mortgage than they pay on the same property on taxes.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Technically yes, but the problem is that they can afford to hold their investments in many small companies so they won't even have to pay that much tax.

Just adding government oversight for this idea is going to be a costly nightmare.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Maybe the value of real estate held by corporations is assigned proportionally to the shareholders? Maybe the tax rate is determined by whichever intermediate owner results in the highest rate.

I don't see why you can't make it enforceable and effective with less complexity than the current tax system.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago

Hmm, maybe. I still don't like the fact that some rich dude could just go and say "Hmm such a nice home they've built for themselves, I think I will forcibly buy it". There's so much more value to a home than the land it sits on and the building materials. There's a lot of sentimental value once you've lived somewhere for years or decades even.

If there was an exception for primary residences, your idea might be a lot less horrible. Again something that could likely be schemed through, but at the very least, it'd just be investment properties that get targeted. I don't give a fuck about those.