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- cross-posted to:
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Hate both. The game is monstrous, and those who play it perpetuate it.
We’re all in the game. We don’t have a choice. Everyone needs a place to live.
This isn’t the only game that can be played.
It’s all one game. Everyone’s in it and there’s no escape.
It’s not the only game that’s ever been played though, which means the game can be changed.
I was a landlord for a while, only one rental property, but I refused to raise the rent along with market increases because the existing rent was sufficient to cover my property expenses. There was no financial need to raise the rent, except for personal gain, so instead I choose to show gratitude for what I already had and passed on the benefits to the tenant.
I think that’s how it should be and probably used to be. A lot of landlords with very few rentals.
Nowadays, we have literal company optimizing everything to get the most out of their investment. If they can increase, they will.
A landlord that does this as a side business won’t necessarily increase the rent because he will prefer to have a good relationship because he does not want to spend all his time searching for new tenants.
I feel like even a big company should want to have a good relationship with its tenants. If you lose just one month’s rent, you’re out over 8% of your annual revenue and you’re lucky if that’s even your profit margin in the first place.
That’s why they’re so quick to evict. If they keep everyone squeezed for housing, then resistive tennants can be replaced quickly, and prices can inch up even more.
In a working market, there would be a lower cost alternative, but if all options are high-cost then the only real alternative left is homelessness, which is already illegal and being persecuted more and more.
I bought a house last year that I’m going to live in eventually after my elderly parents (who I live with) pass or move into a nursing home. In the meantime I’m renting it out below market to a coworker who needs an affordable place so she can keep her daughter in our school district. I get enough to cover my insurance and property taxes and some additional renovations to the house. I consulted with a property lawyer before buying it and he gave me a copy of his standard lease which he recommends to clients; it included an automatic annual 5% increase in rent. I’ve rented most of my life and I’ve never seen anything that rapacious.
In fact the 5% increase will roughly keep you even especially if you are charging under market rent. That’s not keeping up with rental market increases, just inflation + the consequences of market increases even if you aren’t tracking with rental rates yourself.
If you charge $1000 this year that’s around $950-$970 next year. Or to flip it around, say you have $1k in expenses for repairs etc that’s around $1030-1050 next year. And that’s with average-ish inflation (it was 7% in 2021!). The 5% covers that plus increases in property taxes (jeebus fuck) and insurance costs (holy shit).
You are very commendable for this. However, this is also the reason why we clearly can’t rely on people’s good will over their greed, because you’re clearly exceptional haha
They made it a game
Owner occupancy credit against property taxes. Sometimes called a “homestead exemption”.
Basically, we increase property taxes, but owner-occupants are exempt from the increases. Any year the owner occupancy rate is below 85%, we increase both, which simply increases taxes on landlords.
So they just pass it on to tenants? They will try, but the landlord who converts to a private mortgage or a land contract instead of a traditional rental will be able to undercut traditional landlords and still earn more than them. Meanwhile, his “tenants” will be earning equity, while the traditional tenants will not.
He’s not taking any additional risk lending than he would be renting to the same person. When a tenant stops paying rent, the landlord evicts; when a borrower stops paying the mortgage, a lender forecloses. Either way, the property ends up back in his hands.
Why the baby steps? Just ban the ownership of property you don’t personally live in. You can landlord an apartment building, if you live in one of the units. No corporate ownership of land.
If you use Medicare, they can take your house after you die. You could sell it to your kids, or a friend, and they could allow you to live in it. But with your rule, they would have to move in with you. They would not be allowed to own their own home and yours simultaneously. Your rule just fucked over the elderly and family inheritance.
It would similarly fuck over parents who want to buy a home and issue a private mortgage to their kids. Your rule just fucked over families.
Your rule just prevented lenders from being able to issue mortgages: as a corporation, they cannot recover the property if the borrower refuses to make payments.
On the other hand, your rule doesn’t go nearly far enough: “landlords” aren’t the problem. “Renting” is the problem. You envisioned apartment complexes remaining as rented properties. I don’t. No more than 4 housing units on a single deeded property would qualify for the owner occupant credit.
Under my plan, apartment complexes don’t qualify unless the units are separately deeded properties. Maybe an occupant buys up four contiguous units and converts them into a quadplex where 3 of the 4 units can be rented, but most apartments complexes will simply become condominiums, and the occupants will be voting members of the condo association.
Adjusting the non-occupant tax rate to target a high owner-occupancy rate achieves the objective without undue inhibition of inoffensive activities.
Land Value Tax breaks the game.
Who is the face?
Christopher Luxon the current Prime Minister of New Zealand.
His and his coalition parties in government lean strongly into landlords with recent policies changes making it better for people who already own more than one property.
So he’s basically a souls-like landlord boss
ty
Thank you for asking. It did not occur to me that it’s an actual picture of a cunt they used.
Landlord
Nah mate, that’s Christopher Luxon.
Sometimes the market includes stuff like tourists making short-term renting very valuable or lack of housing development and so on.
Removed by mod
Ah… divide and conquer.
Your local politicians are very very proud of all of you.
wrong take
I get that it’s satisfying to say “the bourgeoisie are bad people!” (and “the proletariat are good people!”) but it’s not really about moral character: they are two different classes who embody different relations to property.
but also, fuck them
Fuck landlords. There should be a 100% tax on the value of land
What does land mean in this context does it mean property? How am I supposed to be 100% tax on property that does not generate money because it’s a house? Is the property value drops then I’m losing money under this scheme.
You would not be taxed on any improvements, only on the value of the land underneath it. Building improvements is a good thing and you shouldn’t be punished for that. A 100% tax on land value would make ownership of that land essentially worthless, so you would only be taxed the amount that land could produce in rent.
So if I buy a house that’s already been built then I’m not doing improvements to the land am I? I’m simply purchasing property.
But I’m not a rich person it took almost my entire life savings to buy this house why should I not pass it on to my children?
You bring up a valid point, any change that is implemented should have exceptions to avoid screwing ordinary people out of the fruits of their labor that were legitimately invested under the prevailing system. The longer answer is that house itself is an improvement even if you didn’t build it and it should not be taxed, and you should be able to pass it on to your children without interference from anyone, but the land underneath it is a different matter. What if the value of the land has increased from $100,000 to $1,000,000 during the time someone owns it, even though they have made no improvements to it? Where does that increase in value come from? It comes from the work of the surrounding community. Is it right for one person to be able to capture a percentage of that? The goal of a land value tax is not to punish anyone, it is only to prevent landowners from either charging rent without adding value or realizing large capital gains, all at the expense of everyone else.
No the idea is that it is very distinct from property. It is just the value of the land. Any “improvement”, be it a house, a factory, or an apartment building is untaxed.
For people who don’t live on their land right?
For everyone. Why should one generation enrich itself at the expense of the next while producing nothing? Land speculation is purely extractive.
I just want one small parcel of land to live on and not pay rent to a landlord. Why should I be taxed 100% for that?
Because the earth is finite and you having that land means it’s denied to everyone else. You shouldn’t have to pay rent to a landlord just because his great great grandfather was a Marquis, but you should compensate everyone else for excluding them from something they have as much right to as you do. The idea of the land value tax is not to punish you, but to prevent you from profiting from the work of others that increases the value of your land without you having to do anything. Henry George explained all of this better than I can.
How would this account for people who do put work into increasing the value of their land? If you decide to permanently settle down somewhere, naturally you’d want to make improvements to your home and the surrounding areas to improve your quality of life.
You’re right, technically a land value tax should be not on the total value of the land but rather on the unimproved value, so even improvements made to the land itself would still be exempt from taxation.
