this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
49 points (96.2% liked)

Australia

3600 readers
10 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
Fluid@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
49
Create a race to the bottom in the rental market (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by TheBananaKing@lemmy.world to c/australia@aussie.zone
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Not sure if this counts as politics or not; let me know.

One major brick in the toilet tank of the rental market is apparently investors just 'parking their money' in properties and leaving them vacant longterm, with an eye to selling them later at an inflated price - with rental income being not worth the hassle.

Some people have suggested a tax on vacant properties to give more incentive to rent them out.

Good idea, but I say we go one better.

  1. Put a hefty tax on all properties that aren't owner-occupied.
  2. Give a rebate for renting them out, proportional to the percentage above or below the average rental for comparable properties.

If you charge above-average rent, you get a small rebate.

If you charge average rent, you get a medium rebate.

If you charge below-average rent, you get a large rebate. This could even exceed 100%, using the funding from the other categories.

People chasing the large rebate will drive the average down over time, ate viola, we have a race to the bottom and the consumers reap the benefits.

There's probably a dozen reasons why this wouldn't work, but I like it anyway.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Marsupial@quokk.au 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I can’t agree with a rebate for charging above average. Why should our tax money go towards giving them more money for ripping us off.

I’d possibly tolerate a rebate for below average, but I wouldn’t support it.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, a common suggestion I've seen (and even made) in the past is to put a levy on un-occupied homes. But one problem with this is enforcement: how do you tell it's unoccupied?

Well, OP here has the solution. Flip the burden of proof around. Charge everyone, but if you can demonstrate that you have a tenant, you get that charge waived.

Then, OP adds further nuance to it. Instead of being a binary "rented/unoccupied", there are tiers. Start with unoccupied at maximum tax. Down to minimum (potentially zero or even negative tax) for below-market rent. It's just all described in terms of starting with an automatic levy of a certain amount, with rebates on that levy to get you to the desired rate.

[–] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Hm. And if you link the basic levy to the cash rate...

[–] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Because renting it out for a lot is better than tying up the market; at least it'll soak up some rich idiot.

Also it's not our money - it's coming off the new tax.