>apartment owners wanting to hold on to empty apartments to rent them for the Olympics rather than to locals.
Sounds like something that can be fixed with laws.
Edit: would you mind explaining your downvotes with arguments please? thanks.
Sounds like something that can be fixed with laws.
Edit: would you mind explaining your downvotes with arguments please? thanks.
Many apartments that are being rented are those that house people otherwise, Paris being very well known for emptying out in July/August. For those that are being held back to rent, it can probably be hard to know what's the truth, "we didn't find a tenant" versus "we didn't want to find a tenant."
Also, I think there's also a benefit to the government, as they want to have this empty short-term housing stock available for tourists coming in. A lot of money is being invested in the games, it's important to get the tourism money to make it profitable.
I'm not French but IMHO, Airbnb style short term renting for tourst purposes should come with hefty taxes because housing should always prioritize the locals who live, work, have families and pay taxes there, not wealthy foreigners on vacation.
Sucks for them I guess. Maybe they should have diversified and invested in stocks or bonds instead of going all-in in housing-for-rent "investment" and complaining it doesn't turn up to be a huge profit making scheme like they expected, and expect the government to cover their losses.
Someone's housing shouldn't be someone else's for-profit side-hustle gamble. It's why housing is such a mess in the first place.
You can't have housing be affordable AND provide hefty profit returns in private pockets at the same time. Those will always be in contradiction at odds with each other in capitalism.
Honestly, I expected better from the socialist French, that they would have solved affordable housing for the masses.
I agree, income from property should be heavily taxed, it's essentially private profit from the land value, and that value derives directly from it's location and the strength of the local economy, rather than any effort or contribution from the owner.
Anyways I don't have an opinion about this, just wanted to answer why would people protest - because it's not some faceless corporation but them directly you're taxing.
Owning 1 apartment is completely different than owing 5 apartments in the same city. You can live in 1 apartment but you can't live in 5 at the same time. You're profiting off the other 4 ,so you should pay tax for it.