Comment by greenie_beans
1 day ago
> But lower-income/wealth individuals would also benefit because they'd get access to more affordable housing in the areas that they need to live.
how does this create affordable housing? taxes are only one piece of why housing is so expensive. the landowners would need a return on their investment, which they would get by raising rent. this is the core problem imo -- costs for construction and labor and permitting and taxes requiring higher rent in order to make the investment worthwhile.
the offset of lower taxes will absolutely not pay for the cost to "fully utilize" the property.
The theory here is that people who aren't getting "enough value" out of the land will be forced to sell to developers who will turn them into, among other things, houses.
yes i know, that is the "theory" in a logical vacuum. that just reinforces my original point that it will hurt the middle class and only benefit wealthy people. especially since the tax would make the land cheaper (in LVT theory), so when you are forced to sell it you're gonna have to sell at a lower price than you'd like (that is the entire logic of LVT: make land cheaper to encourage more building).
you can't just wave a wand to build housing if the taxes change to LVT. we all know that developers don't build affordable housing. the margins are much more attractive to build luxury housing...it's the incentive structure. housing is expensive to build, and those investors will require an ROI.
terrible idea! the more you look at it, the worse and worse it sounds.