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Comment by superb-owl | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered why there aren't more restrictions or disincentives for second homes. Empty second homes generate a ton of economic waste. And a high percentage vacation/rental homes can completely ruin a local culture.

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Implementation will be impossible. People will just own other properties through holding companies.

easy enough to block that with a restrictive covenant too

Hypothetically, why can't you only allow private individuals to buy houses in a residential area? I honestly see no real issue with this in many communities.

Regulations can be made that prohibit ownership of residential properties by companies with certain structures, require that these companies list the true beneficial owner(s), etc.

There will always be loopholes and attempts to find them, but that shouldn't necessarily be a deterrent to taking action.

About 70% of my investment income comes through indirect and direct ownership of residential and commercial property. It's just too easy for the wealthy to come in and buy up properties to price others out.

Because it's hard to forbid you to own stuff honestly, and lots of people did nothing wrong, sometimes worked all their lives, for a second home.

I believe the principle is that it is inherently bad that _anyone_ owns a second home.

Why stop there. Let’s also ban ownership of more socks than what is needed. Also computers, cars, food, pets, kids, hell, why not money itself.

Pay no attention to all those failed states that have already tried this - this time will be different!

You're purposely conflating necessities with luxuries to strengthen your argument. You don't die (directly) from a lack of computers, but you absolutely do die from a lack of housing and food.

Who draws the line between necessity and luxury? Who draws the line between enough and too much? Who could be so arrogant as to volunteer an opinion on this for all of society?

Further, your argument doesn’t hold water - food is a requirement, but does it have to be grass fed beef? Could I not make do with soylent green?

This way of thinking is a race to the bottom. It must be avoided at all costs.

Have you ever been on food stamps or WIC? The lines between luxury and necessity are already quite well defined by at least my humble midwestern state.

what makes a second home a luxury? What if my parents died and I inherit their house while I own one? Do I lose one, or have a grace period to sell one?

What if I own a family farm and want to build a new modern house on some of the property? Do I need to demolish the old one, sell it, be homeless to build a new one?

These all sound like great questions for lawyers to answer once we’ve established that housing is a human right.

I agree with your point regarding local culture, but I'm not clear on the economic waste. An empty second home generates property tax revenue for the city/town in which it exists, yet, by virtue of being empty, creates no burden on power, schools, roads or other infrastructure. I would suspect that regions with large percentages of vacation homes (e.g. Cape Coral, FL, USA) scale to meet the needs of their resident population. Could they even support 100% occupancy?

I'm pretty sure these sorts of restrictions will just slow down construction.

IMO: the real problem is that it's very hard for individuals to get loans for construction easily (and the ones you can get are extremely risky because the rates can change on you.)

Vacation and rental houses can also generate a lot of money/jobs for towns/cities. Yeah, it's ugly but the fact remains, quite a lot of costal towns need these rentals for their economy to work.

How about a requirement that any residence must be occupied for a majority of the year, else the owner forfeits ownership of the empty property?

Sounds like a great way to discourage the construction of rental property.

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