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Comment by yboris | Hacker News Reader

For an amazing proposal for "every property is always up for sale" see the book Radical Markets

The authors argue that self-assessment of property is the best way to evaluate property - allowing for fair tax collection. If you undervalue the property, someone can buy it through an app. If you overvalue it, you end up paying more in taxes. It's a genius proposal that is worth exploring (by reading the book and by trying in the real world).

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177502/ra...

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How does this intended model deal with billionaires buying up _everything_ so it can be theirs and ruining people's homes and livelihoods, etc?

I could easily imagine companies going out and buying all the houses, or nearly all of them, and then renting access out to them, or replacing them with apartments so they can fit more bodies in them. It absolutely feels like an even worse potential monopoly.

There is another chapter in the book about monopoly power and how to prevent it. It's been a while since I've read it though so I don't remember the exact proposal.

However Glen Weyl would probably say that the book is out of date and point to a model such as quadratic funding, where taxes are allocated by private individuals to fund public goods.

Because even if someone really wanted to, they would have to pay property taxes based on their overinflated bid.

How does that make sense? If anybody can snap up your property from under your feet at any time, you are forced to value your property higher than literally every other person in existence, which is axiomatically not a fair valuation.

See the winner's curse for more.

The "dream" is that it results in a fair valuation, but the reality is it results in rampant problems. Unless you set your valuation high enough, anyone with money who is pissed at you can cause you trouble; how much cash would you need to take to move from your house to an identical one nearby, for example?

However, if you invert it and instead say that you can sell at anytime to the agency that values your property, then it might work, because at that point the "little guy" is the one with the power.

I've seen proposals where it's typically market value + 10% or something which covers transaction costs and the cost and hassle of moving.

I agree that at pure market value it wouldn't make sense.

Sounds kind of terrible. A world where pissing off a rich person means you could lose your home.

Sure, but if a pissed-off rich person is willing to buy it, doesn't that mean your home's highest and best use [1] is as a rich person's cudgel to make you miserable?

So really, as a God-fearing capitalist you should be all for it!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use

Or you go around intentionally pissing off rich people in order to bait them into buying your home for double its value simply by doubling your property tax.

"If you undervalue the property, someone can buy it through an app."

This assumes that you set a self-assessed property value and are subsequently required to sell if an offer is made. (I guess, that's the premise of "every property is always up for sale")

As it stands right now, a house valued at $500,000 will pay a tax that reflects that valuation, but the owner doesn't have to sell even if I offer them x10 that amount. The proposal of self-assessment only works if there's a downside to a low-self assessment (forced selling at self-assessed valuation). This seems decidedly opposed to the concept of "private property" (e.g. This [X] thing is mine).

IIRC some king had this system for taxing cargo in the holds of ship in port. The crown always had the option of purchasing the cargo at the self selected price.

This kind of thing works much better, because the goal of the cargo is being sold, so you're both "aligned" as it were.

Personal and "useful" property doesn't quite fit but investments might.

Only problem is that investors have the capital to operate at a level where us plebs' opinion of what property is worth don't even matter. If you implement that system, Blackrock and those like them will acquire /everything/ within 24 hours.

this is one of those things that's genius for properties-as-investment (and their corresponding pricing) and awful for properties-as-housing (where many people value stability in their housing situation above all)

Also i might have missed it but what does this have to do with an everything app

Co-authored by Eric Posner, law professor and son of HN's darling judge Richard Posner.

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