2mo ago

The Stop Wall Street Landlords Act has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Ro Khanna. The bill would raise taxes on the purchase of single family homes by private equity and corporations.

www.notus.org Ro Khanna Goes After Wall Street Landlords to Address Rising Home Prices

Khanna introduced a bill on Tuesday going after private equity investors who have been buying up homes as speculative investments.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21188435

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The Stop Wall Street Landlords Act has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Ro Khanna. The bill would raise taxes on the purchase of single family homes by private equity and corporations.

www.notus.org /democrats/ro-khanna-wall-street-landlords-rising-home-prices

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59 comments

FFS. How about just deny the purchase of single family homes by all businesses altogether?
- As much as I'd like to see that done, I'm sure businesses would just use shell-people to buy the homes.
  
  Sounds perfect, do it. I wanna see your income statement when you own 20 apartments.
  
  Right. And tax fraud is a crime, so then could be massively fined or locked up for it.
- Passing tax law is firmly in Congress' remit. Telling corporations what they can and cannot buy is a whole lot stickier. The former is far easier.
  
  Passing any law is within the purview of congress per the necessary and proper clause.
- You can't deny the purchase of a single family home from a person and businesses are people in this upside down country
  
  California is doing it.
  https://a24.asmdc.org/press-releases/20240529-bill-ban-corporations-buying-single-family-homes-use-rentals-passes

They shouldn't even be able to buy single family homes. They're buying houses all over the world raising house prices. They belong in the trash with Airbnb.
- There are a few, limited, cases where they should be able to. For example, if they have operations in an area that has frequent medium term employees coming in and out. It's valid for them to say we will offer you a house for the time you are here. But I would generally agree there is no reason for an investment company to be investing in single-family homes. It's good for the investment company, bad for society.
  
  In that situation they could buy a condo, for example.
  
  I think there are a significant number of different ways that a large corporation could provide housing for medium-term employees besides purchasing single family homes. Purchasing small apartment buildings, like a fourplex, or purchasing an empty lot and putting manufactured homes on it creating more housing instead of taking the starter homes from normal families.
  
  Then they cannot rent it... They could offset with wages. This prevents abuse to rent to anyone else.

Raise taxes? They'll just pass the cost on to the renters. We need to forbid then from buying houses.
- Yes beyond a limit that property would be unrentable due to high rent. Then since the property owner still would have to pay taxes on the property he might sell it.
  That is if the law is properly worded and properly applied.
- Your analysis is missing half the story. This setup would encourage local property ownership. They would undercut the corporations. We might see increased competition and therefore lower prices as a result.
  I agree with you, though. A strong solution is better.

Not a chance this bill passes considering most of congress stands to benefit from not passing it.
I really hope it sends a message though.
- Sometimes you need a few good Congress critters to up the idea on the table.
  Too many people don't even know what is possible
- Fucking seriously... I'm expecting some absolutely absurd numbers like (don't check my math) D200 No D11 Yes R All No
  :(
  
  No chance it will even come to the floor for a vote.

Even a baby step is a step in the right direction, but can we be honest with the naming here? "Mildly Inconvenience Wall Street Landlords with a Tax They will pass on to their Renters Act" is more wordy, but tells you everything you need to know.

Good, but the damage is done, and they can afford those taxes which will only get caught on the backend resale.
They need to be forced to divest immediately to do any real good.

Unless it's horribly written, this is obviously a good idea.

I wonder how many members of Congress own rental properties
- This is specifically about corporations owning private property. Fuck landlords but i'd rather rent from a private citizen than an llc.
  
  Meh. I had much better luck with corporations than private landlords. The people working for corporations generally want to do a good job and keep people happy. Owners want to minimize costs and invade your privacy to make sure you aren't causing too much wear and tear, since that's money otherwise going in their pocket.
  Both will end up with shitty carpet and cheap appliances, of course.
- Probably all of them
  
  That "probably" is just based on complete ignorance. Don't just throw out nonsense like this, especially when you have no idea.
  
  I'm not so sure. The knee-jerk reaction of the cynic in me is to agree with you, but I actually think it's fairly unlikely that they own rental properties specifically. Many, if not most, probably own multiple properties as rich people are wont to do but, I would imagine that most of those are just "summer homes" or similar rather than something that is rented out as a "landlord" in the way most people think of it. It is possible that they could be investors in these funds, REITs, or other such vehicles which would make them indirect owners of these items.

Merely a stop on the road to making it illegal like it obviously needs to be.
Let's grab lunch!

"Here's $5000 and a week at my private ski resort. Your voting no."
- Or here is an insider tip and make bank
  
  But that one is still illegal, technically.
- My voting no?
  
  Here's another $1000. Everything is spelled right and grammatically correct.

Raising sales tax won't do a fucking thing. The increase needs to be on property taxes, so it recurs year after year. And it needs to apply to everyone except owner-occupants. Investors need to abandon renting as a viable business model. They can replace it with private mortgages and land contracts (contract for deed, rent to own) arrangements where the "tenant" gains equity and is considered an owner-occupant.

Nice. Bring it on!!!!!!

Worth noting that private equity only owns a very small percentage of homes in the country so while this would have impact, it's not going to change house prices, it simply might make the line take slightly longer to go up. What will impact housing affordability is simply building more housing. Eliminate single family zoning and replace it with a residential-compatible zoning that allows for quadplexes, ADUs and quiet businesses.

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59 comments