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Comment by kortex | Hacker News Reader

Going by the graph in the article, that's still ~13% of homes owned by investors with >5 properties. And that's total of what is currently held, it speaks nothing of liquidity. That number likely includes investors who have had that property for a long time, the current property buy-up likely means far greater than 13% of the market right now is going to those sorts of aggregators.

Dropping the price of a house by a few percentage points can be the make-or-break for some families. And small changes in availability can have large impacts on price.

If we banned (or severely penalized) all entities from owning more than 5 residential homes, this would probably reduce cost by a few percentage points across the board. That's thousands of dollars.

Personally, I think unoccupied homes in general ought to be penalized (beyond just tax burden, an actual vacancy tax).

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You may be interested in learning about the Land Value Tax[0] which will in effect, taxes become more burdensome for leaving land unproductive (e.g., empty housing or land). It also shifts the calculus on home improvements, which means remodeling your home or doing other perhaps large pieces of upkeep will not trigger a property tax increase as it does today, which is better for median home owners as well.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

    > home improvements, which means remodeling your home or doing other perhaps large pieces of upkeep will not trigger a property tax increase as it does today

I have heard this complaint here a few times, but very few specifics. I would call getting your roof replaced or your kitchen/bathroom remodelled as major home improvements. Do these actually property tax increases?

In many jurisdictions they do, yes. A general guideline is that if it requires an permit it will typically trigger an assessment and thus increase in property tax

If everything else is equal, a roof replacement or other maintenance shouldn't appreciably change the value of the house (not beyond the cost of maintenance).

What WILL change your property tax is an addition or similar that makes your house go from X (same as everyone around you) to 1.2X or similar, then you'll proportionally pay more tax.

(It varies by district, but most USA property taxes are calculated by figuring out the budget for the city/county/school district, and dividing it proportionally amongst the valuations of properties/houses. This is often displayed as a percentage of the value, but it is not a percentage TAX - as if everyone's property doubles overnight but the budget remains the same, the property tax dollar amounts would remain the same while the percentage reported goes down.)

Depends on how your locality assesses the value of your home. You can probably do a web search for where you live specifically if you want to get into the nitty gritty. In the places I've lived, unless I added more square footage, these won't trigger an automatic property tax increase.

But if the improvements on your house makes the neighborhood more desirable and your neighbor's house sell for a higher price then your locality expects, then your house will be assessed at a higher value the next time the locality does their assessments, which means higher taxes.

Of course, improvements to your home that increase a sale value will affect the taxes, but the buyer has to deal with that.

Do some localities assess homes individually every so often? I wonder...

In general a roof repair (including a full replacement) won’t trigger a re-assessment but a kitchen remodel will.

A roof replacement isn’t really an improvement so much as expensive maintenance.

Imagine actually telling the government that you remodeled your kitchen. Nobody is that dumb, right?

Some people think the primary purpose of building permits and inspections is to ensure quality work. Others disagree.

>Personally, I think unoccupied homes in general ought to be penalized

As is done in the UK

That sounds like the "empty home premium" - which only kicks in after a year:

https://www.gov.uk/council-tax/second-homes-and-empty-proper...

Which is fair compromise as it can take that long to find a tenant.

I think Vancouver has a vacancy tax. Does it work?

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