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Comment by junkscience2017 | Hacker News Reader

junkscience2017

many homeowners are electing to retain ownership of their home but rent it out. this has reduced the inventory available for purchase. many homes on my street in Los Gatos have become rentals. when my new neighbors (renters) tell me their monthly rent, my jaw drops.

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Prop 13 highly encourages this behavior. If one is leaving the Bay Area and ever wishes to return, keeping ownership of a property with a low assessed value could save one or two thousand dollars a month in property tax when you return.

If you follow homes on Zillow you'll see small two bedroom houses get bought for 1.2-1.5 million and then immediately show up as rentable for $5500/month.

If you actually live here and want to buy it's very difficult and extremely risky. I don't mind living with roommates, but if you're someone who wants to have a family it's probably not worth it.

I share a 3 bedroom with three other roommates (four total since there's one couple) and the total rent is $6150 (which is a pretty good deal).

I wish there was some hefty tax on people buying houses just to rent them that don't actually live here.

I wish there was some hefty tax on people buying houses just to rent them that don't actually live here.

So, you want to pay quite a bit more on your rent?

I don't get the aversion to rentals. Not everyone wants to purchase a house everywhere they might live.

Maybe some other way to not incentivize rich people from far away buying houses to rent which drives the entire market (and rents) up?

It's not an aversion to rentals (I don't mind renting) - it's more an aversion to burning large amounts of money on extremely high rents even when I plan to stay somewhere for a long time.

We have a neighbor who rented out her house to 5-6 groups of people (some individuals, some couples). Based on the type of cars her tenants drive — newer German sports cars — I'm guessing she pulls in around 10k per month in total.

She cashes the checks from South America, where she now lives.

I would expect this trend to accelerate as the new GOP tax plan greatly reduces the taxes paid on income earned by landlords letting out a property.

Citation?

The bill, go read it.

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