Hacker News Reader

Comment by nosuchthing | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't this be solved by passing city ordinances, and state taxes on vacant properties, non-primary houses, and un-rented apartment spaces?

Without any way to counter balance out speculation, land hording, and gentrification/displacement of urban areas, syndicates of real-estate investors would just buy up everything in sight, turn it into luxury condos/lofts and set the price at a rate determined to be some minimum of %75 of the target populations' average income..

View on HN

> Couldn't this be solved by passing city ordinances, and state taxes on vacant properties, non-primary houses, and un-rented apartment spaces?

Why restrict these taxes only to unused spaces? If you do so, you'll have to get around people only nominally using the spaces.

> Without any way to counter balance out speculation, land hording, and gentrification/displacement of urban areas, syndicates of real-estate investors would just buy up everything in sight, turn it into luxury condos/lofts and set the price at a rate determined to be some minimum of %75 of the target populations' average income..

If only making money was so easy..

Keeping a large number of properties empty is extremely disruptive to transit planners. They have to puzzle through the situation where homes next to the subway aren't using the subway.

>Why restrict these taxes only to unused spaces?

To create an incentive for unused spaces to be used, instead of horded.

>If you do so, you'll have to get around people only nominally using the spaces.

Who could pull that off? Someone who owns 4 houses?.. 10 apartment units?

How would the legal system tell apart used from unused spaces? How would you make that distinction hard to game for someone with expensive lawyers and resources.

The UK already has taxes on vacant properties — they're just (obviously) not high enough to stop what's happening in London, where the growth in value far exceeds the taxes.

Which taxes are these? Last I checked, the only taxes on property were:

a) stamp duty - sometimes historically avoided by owning property though a cooperation, which is then sold instead of the property directly.

b) council tax - avoided by keeping the property empty of funiture.

I don't believe it is the case that keeping a property empty of furniture absolves the owner of have to pay council tax: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Tax#Exemptions]]

Apparently it's a 6 months exemption. I could have sworn there was no time limit on the west lothian council page, but I'm probably wrong.

Doesn't it already cost money to leave an apartment vacant (opportunity costs)? How would taxes fundamentally change that?

It would make the cost higher. When you increase the cost of something, fewer people do it.

Real-estate as ~The Ultimate Investment~ sitting in hedge fund portfolios with the motive of maximum financial extradition of the local population could easily eat the cost of empty units at the gain of forcibly starving out available living space in urban areas.

A tax crafted in such a way to disincentive hording and speculation would push empty homes and apartments into actual use as living spaces instead of financial siphons.

I still don't get it - how are they making money if they don't rent or sell those housing units?

I get that they speculate on rising prices. But that is still a speculation, so it can go wrong.

And by driving away people, they are probably devaluing their property.

The purpose is to put to use housing units. Not speculative financial devices.

Hording real estate in urban areas inflates prices via intentional limitation on supply.

I get that, and it's an age old accusation against speculation. But it's really not so simple, because limiting the supply also has costs and it might ultimately fail (it usually does).

Do you have any numbers that show the speculation is really what is driving the prices? I doubt that some vacant flat here or there has a significant impact on prices.

If a street was completely vacant, prices would probably go down because it would be unattractive to live there.

for london, no. not really

London has a chronic lack of affordable housing, and there is no new supply. Worse there is no social renting housing being built either.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com