Comment by busterarm
4 hours ago
I strongly doubt that this is going to have the effect that they want it to. It won't raise the taxes that they expect it to. It won't free up inventory. It will halt construction.
4 hours ago
I strongly doubt that this is going to have the effect that they want it to. It won't raise the taxes that they expect it to. It won't free up inventory. It will halt construction.
Taxing second homes would halt construction? Plenty of people out there wish to own a first home, myself included.
How will that tax result in more houses existing?
How will this tax result in less houses available for people with no primary home existing?
It’s a tax on second homes. If a single person sells due to the tax and someone who had 0 homes previously, it’s spread the scarce housing stock.
Not to say we shouldn’t build more but acting like a tax on multiple homes is going to make houses less available to everyone is ludicrous.
It will result in fewer second homes existing, therefore more first homes.
The cost of construction in _New York City_ generally sets a floor as far as who can afford to pay for it.
The per-apartment cost of construction in Manhattan is more than the retail price of my 3500sq ft house in near-rural South Carolina.
This guy thinks a tax on second homes in fucking NYC is going to disproportionately harm the middle class.
He is economically illiterate.
Edit: scratch that, he also mentioned leaving a rent controlled apartment because of a crabs in a bucket mentality. I think he’s lying to push his own political agenda which appears to be that of the rich never paying taxes.
I’ll lol if he’s some pleb like most of us and is just running defense for his “betters”
Or economically literate and malicious. Many such cases.
While rent control and exclusionary zoning do have measurable negative impacts on building, a vacancy tax on second homes is unlikely to have side effects beyond raising revenue. If a price-sensitive owner of a pied-à-terre is forced to sell or rent out the unit, then the policy is successful: the residence will be occupied.
Ideally no second home tax would be implemented, and we could treat housing as an export. But due to intense local planning constraints, housing is scarce.
New York City rent exists at an equilibrium.
The draw for people to move there is so intense, that any draw downs in rent are met with upticks in immigration.
Adding housing stock in NYC is not like adding housing stock in Lawnsdale Ohio. Almost by definition you cannot out build the demand for housing.
> Almost by definition you cannot out build the demand for housing.
Would love to see some justification for this claim, which tacitly suggests that adding, say, 2M extra apartments over baseline would have zero effect on our housing market.
2 million new apartments is doubling the number of apartments in NYC.
I call water safe, but you may say it's a tacit admission that you could drink 5 gallons in an hour an experience zero effects. I wouldn't call that an honest rebuttal
I'm not sure it's that clear, and the taxes might not be the point. If this halts construction of second homes in the higher price ranges, then those construction crews will still need to do something. So, that might make it possible to find construction capacity for higher-density construction that otherwise wasn't available. Whether or not such a trickle-down effect will happen isn't guaranteed, but it's possible. It's also possible that no construction happens and we see a loss of jobs in the process.
It's a complex market and this is definitely a risk.
It’ll halt construction on luxury second homes? Wonderful!
Seriously. Instead of using that land to build a $250 million penthouse Ken Griffin only spends 10 days a year in, they could probably build enough housing for 500+ middle class families.
Who will build those homes? Who will pay for them? If it were a lucrative business to build those homes I'd assume someone would be building them but that does not seem to be the case. Why is this?
1 reply →
I don't think the demand for second homes worth over $5 million is a major driver of construction of new units in NYC.
> It will halt construction.
Why would that be the case?
Those homes are built for money laundering anyway. Good riddance.