And single-family homes should have a 100% annual tax on them, unless they are owned by an individual human/family (none of this LLC bullshit) who own only 1 house. Make a 6-month exception for inherited houses just so they can be sold, but otherwise just tax the shit out of them.
6 months to offload a house is not always so easy.
I did a search around the area I grew up that is very rural and I checked 4 properties for sale, two of them under $100k and they’ve been listed for over a year. In urban areas there’s demand, but rural areas commonly have houses just no one wants on land that no one cares about. No distant LLCs want them so they are available, but they aren’t convenient to anything so no one wants them either.
Pricing of homes in food deserts has pretty much zero impact on the housing that could actually help low-income individuals.
The housing situation and relative benefits (and lack therof) to house residents in rural areas is just fundamentally distinct from the urban situation.
There are many cases where you just can’t reduce prices enough to make them sell
my higher priced town paid Pennies on the dollar for a complex that used to be a mental hospital and housing for various challenged. No developer was willing to pay anything because of lead and asbestos remediation costs. My town was hoping to get EPA funds and didn’t so is saddled with unusable property that it also can’t afford to clean up
the town I grew up in has been declining for decades. Many houses are well below the cost of cars but still no one willing or able to buy. Last time I checked there seemed to be a floor at $5k but there were multiple habitable houses for $5k, and no buyers
If they’re not worth any money, then the tax burden of sitting on them shouldn’t be high enough to be a problem. But if it is, you can sell them cheap, abandon them to government auction, replat them with neighboring cheap lots do make ag land or a large lot for an industrial or multifamily development, or more.
“I can’t make a bunch of money selling or renting this lot” is not an excuse to just sit on land waiting for the value to go up.
I like that this idea also punishes single family home owners for hoarding land. You could build a ton of apartments on a single American-sized sfh lot.
That assumes that all land is taxed at a similar value. However my property at 1/5 of an acre in town is worth more than a standard suburban acreage.
I think this continues to discourage living in higher density downtowns where there is walkability and transit, while enocuraging sprawl because large single family suburban lots are cheaper so have lower tax
Unused housing should be taxed mercilessly.
And single-family homes should have a 100% annual tax on them, unless they are owned by an individual human/family (none of this LLC bullshit) who own only 1 house. Make a 6-month exception for inherited houses just so they can be sold, but otherwise just tax the shit out of them.
Make hoarding housing a liability.
6 months to offload a house is not always so easy.
I did a search around the area I grew up that is very rural and I checked 4 properties for sale, two of them under $100k and they’ve been listed for over a year. In urban areas there’s demand, but rural areas commonly have houses just no one wants on land that no one cares about. No distant LLCs want them so they are available, but they aren’t convenient to anything so no one wants them either.
That means they aren’t worth 100k. Forcing people to sell them for their actual value will lower real estate prices nationwide.
Pricing of homes in food deserts has pretty much zero impact on the housing that could actually help low-income individuals.
The housing situation and relative benefits (and lack therof) to house residents in rural areas is just fundamentally distinct from the urban situation.
There are many cases where you just can’t reduce prices enough to make them sell
If they’re not worth any money, then the tax burden of sitting on them shouldn’t be high enough to be a problem. But if it is, you can sell them cheap, abandon them to government auction, replat them with neighboring cheap lots do make ag land or a large lot for an industrial or multifamily development, or more.
“I can’t make a bunch of money selling or renting this lot” is not an excuse to just sit on land waiting for the value to go up.
I like that this idea also punishes single family home owners for hoarding land. You could build a ton of apartments on a single American-sized sfh lot.
I don’t see that it does that. What do you mean?
That assumes that all land is taxed at a similar value. However my property at 1/5 of an acre in town is worth more than a standard suburban acreage.
I think this continues to discourage living in higher density downtowns where there is walkability and transit, while enocuraging sprawl because large single family suburban lots are cheaper so have lower tax