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Comment by kortex

2 days ago

Going by the graph in the article, that's still ~13% of homes owned by investors with >5 properties. And that's total of what is currently held, it speaks nothing of liquidity. That number likely includes investors who have had that property for a long time, the current property buy-up likely means far greater than 13% of the market right now is going to those sorts of aggregators.

Dropping the price of a house by a few percentage points can be the make-or-break for some families. And small changes in availability can have large impacts on price.

If we banned (or severely penalized) all entities from owning more than 5 residential homes, this would probably reduce cost by a few percentage points across the board. That's thousands of dollars.

Personally, I think unoccupied homes in general ought to be penalized (beyond just tax burden, an actual vacancy tax).

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kortex

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no_wizard  2 days ago

You may be interested in learning about the Land Value Tax[0] which will in effect, taxes become more burdensome for leaving land unproductive (e.g., empty housing or land). It also shifts the calculus on home improvements, which means remodeling your home or doing other perhaps large pieces of upkeep will not trigger a property tax increase as it does today, which is better for median home owners as well.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

  • throwaway2037  2 days ago 

        > home improvements, which means remodeling your home or doing other perhaps large pieces of upkeep will not trigger a property tax increase as it does today

    I have heard this complaint here a few times, but very few specifics. I would call getting your roof replaced or your kitchen/bathroom remodelled as major home improvements. Do these actually property tax increases?

    • sokoloff  2 days ago

      In general a roof repair (including a full replacement) won’t trigger a re-assessment but a kitchen remodel will.

      A roof replacement isn’t really an improvement so much as expensive maintenance.

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    • dfxm12  2 days ago

      Depends on how your locality assesses the value of your home. You can probably do a web search for where you live specifically if you want to get into the nitty gritty. In the places I've lived, unless I added more square footage, these won't trigger an automatic property tax increase.

      But if the improvements on your house makes the neighborhood more desirable and your neighbor's house sell for a higher price then your locality expects, then your house will be assessed at a higher value the next time the locality does their assessments, which means higher taxes.

      Of course, improvements to your home that increase a sale value will affect the taxes, but the buyer has to deal with that.

      Do some localities assess homes individually every so often? I wonder...

    • no_wizard  2 days ago

      In many jurisdictions they do, yes. A general guideline is that if it requires an permit it will typically trigger an assessment and thus increase in property tax

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