Harris to endorse protections for renters and removal of key tax benefits for Wall St. investors buying homes
Harris has begun to provide details about her policy positions after abruptly becoming the Democratic nominee.
The ownership of homes by wall st. was always a terrible idea.
yeah, fuck tax benefits, make it illegal
Property tax should be 100% for third houses (there are legit reasons to own 2 houses - especially when helping a family member finance a home or inheriting property) and for any houses not owned by an actual human.
Give developers building a house 3 months to sell after completion. If it doesn't sell in that time, it gets auctioned off to the highest bidder with no minimum price.
Also give a maximum construction time of like 2 years to keep them from leaving a door off or something and calling it unfinished until it sells for their inflated bullshit value.
Land zoned residential must be developed or sold to an individual human within X years. Empty land that's zoned residential should be platted with a maximum lot size appropriate to the area to keep them from developing 1 house on a thousand-acre tract and selling it to someone who is trying to sit on the land as an investment.
Essentially, developers need to be forced to build and sell houses at a fair market rate they're prohibited from manipulating.
Can we add on the penalty being forced to hike across the Mojave buck naked with no shoes.
Tax benefits for investors buying homes?!?!?!!??!
Who the FUCK DID THAT?!?!?
"housing market is really hard to fix guys"
Gives tax breaks to landlords
You won't believe it, but they are also invested in Congress, and Congress knows how to pleasure shareholders.
Guess
Ummm. The investors I would guess.
Depreciation of assets are tax write-offs, I think.
enforce fair housing laws
Hopefully this includes not kicking out people who can still pay rent, just so the landlord can have themselves a weekend vacation cabin or higher-priced rental. And there should be a law forcing landlords to offer a rent-to-own option. Also, how about recalculating inflation to account for every expense that has gone up, so that the percentage a landlord can raise rent each year isn't so damned high. While we're being fair, of course :|
I agree with everything you said except for this:
And there should be a law forcing landlords to offer a rent-to-own option.
I generally don't think there should be laws forcing individual citizens to sell anything they own. I could however be on board with government regulated and incentivized rent-to-own programs.
Owner Occupancy credit against property taxes. Sometimes called a "homestead exemption".
Basically, if you live in a house you own, you pay a vastly lower property tax rate. If you own a house you don't live in, you pay a vastly higher property tax rate on that house, because you can't claim the exemption.
When we establish this, "landlords" stop "renting" and become private mortgage lenders. They sell their homes to their former tenants, or issue "land contracts" (rent-to-own arrangements), and enjoy the lower tax rate on the property.
If they foreclose or evict, they pay the higher tax rate until they get a new "buyer".
I understand what you're saying and I did feel weird typing that since I know there must be a better alternative.
Something has to give, though. In late June I had to leave a place I rented for 19 years and I'm still stunned. Idk how much of the house's value we paid in rent, but it was a lot. And it wasn't even a large home, just a small cabin few people would wish to live in. But there was nothing stopping the landlord from kicking us to the curb.
It's almost as if Harris knows how much Trump loves playing with his real estate
Her campaign so far has been a masterclass in trolling. Can't wait for the next Truth meltdown to drop.
What protections for renters? They basically have none. Let’s see some implemented!
Lol read the article for answers to your question
It’s a rhetorical question. It’s meant to underline how I think the protections are grossly insufficient.
Vice President Kamala Harris will call for the construction of 3 million new housing units in her first four years in office, as well as a new tax incentive for builders that construct properties for first-time home buyers,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The housing initiatives are part of Harris’s emerging economic plan, which she is expected to address in a speech in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday. Rising prices have become a point of intense debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump.”
This is what kills me among many things about Republicans. Trump's pitch is "BiDeN RuInEd EvErYtHiNg!" and his only policy is "deport everyone and give the heritage foundation whatever they want."
Democrats actually have plans to attempt to fix the issues we have, whether self inflicted or not. Whether they can actually accomplish those plans is something else, but at least there's a plan other than removed "the other guy sucks so vote for me!"
Magoos act like we are the same with Trump, but that's because it's all fox news tells them and their feelings get hurt when we say how horrendous Trump actually is so they get defensive and rely on BoTh SiDeS!
Those are going to be some shitboxes.
Compare owning some land and shitbox you can live in to being homeless or watching all the money you earn be taken and horded by landlords.
I'll take the shitbox please.
Why won't anyone think of the tax investors on wall st?!
THANK FUCK
It's not social housing, but it's certainly a step in the right direction
Maybe that helps, in general private equity or owners need a cap on purchasing rental housing units
Somehow it won't get done in her first term but vote her back in and she promises it will get done in her second term. How do I know? Because every single president does the same exact thing.
Because every single president does the same exact thing.
What are you talking about?
Biden got about as much as he could get through a Republican controlled House and a filibustering Senate: a major COVID relief bill, a major infrastructure bill, and a major environmental reform bill.
Trump did a shitload in his one term:
Obama signed a bunch of stuff into law his first two years:
Bush campaigned on tax cuts and got them, and then got a bunch of other stuff in from his first term related to 9/11 and the aftermath: The Patriot Act, authorization for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.
If anything, presidents are far less effective their second term than their first term.
And yet this flawed process has still accomplished more than edgy cynicism ever has.
Most presidents get tripped up by Congress and the filibuster.
Only comment that makes any sense in reply to mine. This is true. I'm just saying they always campaign on the same shit that they can't get done in their first term.
This is how politics work. This is neither new nor a deep critique.
Most people have too much mental load in load in their life. Politicians tie things to election years because people would forget what they did otherwise.
Don't protect "renters". The entire concept of "renting" needs to die in a fucking fire.
Instead, we need to jack up taxes on residential properties. Send them to the moon. $2000/yr? Fuck that: $2000/month.
But nobody actually pays these exorbitant rates, because we create an "Owner Occupancy Credit". The tax rate is only high if the owner doesn't live in the home.
What happens to renters? Do landlords jack up their prices to cover the increased property taxes? Or do they offer their tenants a private mortgage or a land contract, so they don't have to pay the hiked taxes?
When they can make more money as a lender than as a landlord, they aren't going to be renting anymore. Establish an owner occupancy credit, and "landlords" will be fighting tooth and nail to convert tenants into buyers.
(The actual tax rate should target an 85% owner occupancy rate. When more than 20% of the population is renting, the non-occupant tax rate is increased 1% per year. When less than 10% is renting, the non-occupant tax rate is dropped 1% per year. )
Nah, nonprofit state-run landlords (in countries which have them) are great, and strong protections for renters are good. I don't want to buy a house, I move around a lot, don't wanna deal with lawyers every time I move, don't wanna be responsible for maintenance, I just want some basic level of security and not to be completely ripped off.
Why is 85% the magic number? Just because you say so? I do agree that increased property taxes are important, but there's no reason not to also make rental contracts less exploitative.
Nah, nonprofit state-run landlords
We have those. They run "Section 8" housing, which, in my area at least, is substandard housing in high crime areas, because those areas have the cheapest housing, and that's what the state buys. They also currently have a 6-year wait-list in my area. You only have a fixed time you can live there. There is means testing, and strict rules on who can come and go.
The problem isn't actually the "state run" part, though. The problem is the market in which the state is operating. Whatever approach we take, we need to fix that market first, and that's what I'm talking about.
I don't want to buy a house, I move around a lot...
I don't think you understand what a "land contract" is. It gives you the flexibility you need from a rental agreement, without imposing rent on long-term residents of a property.
If you are only going to be living in the property for less than 3 years, it is a rental agreement. It is an agreement that happens to be recorded with the county, like a deed, which allows them to consider you an "owner occupant".
The real differences are if you decide to stay there longer than 3 years. Your monthly payment was calculated by assuming principal, interest, taxes, and insurance on a 30-year mortgage, which is usually what you're going to be paying in rent anyway.
If you stay at least three years, the agreement becomes a sale contract; you become the deeded owner; your equity becomes the down payment, and your former landlord becomes a private lender with those pre-existing terms.
If you leave before 3 years, you forfeit your equity, and the agreement functioned identically to a rental agreement.
You still get to live like a tenant, and move around as you like. You can unilaterally abandon the contract for any reason during that 3-year period. For you, nothing changes other than the words at the top of the agreement. Words that are important to your "landlord" as it saves him a lot on taxes, but that are completely irrelevant to you as a "tenant".
But, if you do change your mind during that three year period, and decide you do want to become a homeowner, you're already well on your way.
Alternatively, Duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes are all single properties, where the owner of that property can live on site, making the property eligible for the owner occupant credit. The other 1-3 units on the property are available to rent out. If you really want an actual rental agreement instead of a land contract, that is one option.
How would you handle apartment buildings?
Making them all Condo’s possible I suppose but, there’d be a lot of poorly maintained buildings no one would want to actually own part of
Landlord has to live on-site. In what I fondly call "face-punching distance." And can only collect a monthly salary equal to 3x the median rental price of all of the units in that building. Any surplus profit after paying utilities, taxes, and maintenance cost (to maintenance people who either also live on site or are at least paid 3x the rent of a median unit), gets refunded to the tenants.
The owner of the building lives in the building and leases apartments to tenants who live in the same building as the owner.
Duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes could all have an owner living in one of the units, making the whole property eligible for the owner occupant credit, while the other units remain available for rent.
Bringing this back to your comment, suppose instead of dividing a complex into individual units, we divided it into a "quadplex" condo. A single property consisting of 4 units. The owner of that property occupies the quadplex, making the quadplex-condo eligible for the owner-occupant credit. 3/4 of the apartments are still rentable.
there’d be a lot of poorly maintained buildings no one would want to actually own part of
Somebody is making money off of those poorly maintained apartment buildings now. Better that somebody be someone who is actually part of the community (and thus motivated to improve the property) than a hedge fund manager living on the other side of the country.
NY has this. What you have described is the STAR tax credit. This credit only applies to school taxes (2-3k a year)
Yeah, many states have similar credits or exemptions for various purposes. From my brief research, it seems the STAR credit is not available to new homeowners. It's only available to people who are grandfathered in. But, it works much like I describe: a credit for owner occupants.
Ohio has a "Homestead Exemption" allowing disabled and elderly homeowners to deduct $25,000 of the market value of their residence.
We can do the same thing for purposes of discouraging corporate and investor ownership of residential property, and encouraging occupant ownership.
Promises mean dogshit in this day and age
You're getting downvoted, but it's true. They aren't obligated to stick to campaign promises. And often don't, or get hamstring by legal hurdles and/or congress.
Yep. And the further feasibly left we vote the more likely we are to see those kinds of things happen. It has to be consistent and it has to be the furthest left that can actually win.
She hasn't promised anything. It just says she is supporting a proposal.
