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America's housing shortage is keeping home prices high (www.axios.com)

submitted 1 year ago by lumberjacked@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

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We’re also seeing a rapid increase in commercial vacancies with WFH. But there are big challenges and costs to turning commercial properties into residential.

I’ve heard a lot about the problems. Surely there’s some good ideas for a solution out there?

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[–] lumberjacked@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I deal with a lot of small business owners and it's amazing how many of them have second homes. These guys are well-off but not what you think of as ultra wealthy. I think housing has been such a high-return investment that both corporations and individuals have been buying up houses they don't need.

Most states in the US I believe have homestead exemptions for property tax on your primary residence. Maybe if they just jacked the prop tax way up on anyone or entity that owns more than one single family property that would make it a less enticing investment.

[–] Talaraine@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly I'd scale it. There's a lot of people who don't sell their first home when they move into their second and it's helping them financially to rent it out. I don't want to go after these people...

Raise the tax per every house you're doing it with. Make it prohibitive at scale.

[–] lumberjacked@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

That's not a bad idea. Tax rate is X. First house is X. Second house is XY, third house is XY*Y, etc.

Problem is property rates are usually city, county, state so you're not going to see consistency between them.