this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Put a hard stop to the purchasing of homes by corporations/businesses and people with no intention of living in them.
You should need proof of intention to live in the home within a reasonable amount of time after the purchase in order to make the sale. The flipping of homes for profit by those with cash and more money is a detriment to the market and the american dream for the rest of the population trying to get a foothold.
The problem isn't necessarily flipping houses, if the ones doing the flipping really are improving the property and are able to refurbish old properties to be more appealing. If they put in the work, they deserve to make money off of that - but they only make their money if they sell.
The problem is corporations who buy up housing stock, with no immediate plans to resell. They view houses like a commodity, and if they constrain supply in certain areas they can artificially create profit. This profit, though, comes at the expense of everyone who is looking for a home at the time.
I think the solution is for localities to step in and crank up property taxes for residential units that are not either occupied or actively on the market. Once a company keeps a property off the market for a year, make it much more painful for them to hold it for another year.
Higher taxes is just a cost of doing business which is passed on to other tenants, be it long or short term rentals, even if housing stock is temporarily held - though I don’t disagree that such a vacancy tax is a good.
GP was right - forbid corporations from owning any residential property if 4 or fewer units and greater than four unless the building is wholly owned.
On the tax side, add a purchasing tax of 15-25%, 90% of which is rebated at closing for non-corporations who have not received the rebate in the previous 24 months. That targets flippers and property-bros willing to go naked on liability.
We do need to have an exception for those who need to buy through a corporation in order to protect their privacy, especially with the rise of professions such as streaming.
Those professions aren't going to be going anywhere anytime soon.