this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Oh, the hard, hard life of the rent-seeker who is stupidly greedy and unwilling to lose a little bit of profit to pay somebody else - like an agency - to take care of all the work and manage their assets, so instead of making money purely from having money without lifting a finger, they have to suffer the indignity of actually working a few hours a week like poor people.
The pain and suffering must be unbearable...
If there's something that landlords and tenants can agree on, I think it's that real estate agencies are the absolute fucking worst.
Indeed!
"Rent-seeking" as an economic concept is not when you collect rent, as a landlord does.
In Economics "rent-seeking" is seeking to receive a "rent", but the concept of "rent" here is broader than merelly the kind of rent paid for a property (for example, when banks place themselves in the position to get a commission out of every small financial transaction out there, through "Touch To Pay" schemes, they are "rent-seeking").
So whilst not all rent-seekers are landlords (probably not even most rent-seekers), all landlords are rent-seekers, which is exactly how I handled those definitions in my post.
Your post is like saying "'Apple' is not the same as 'fruit'" when somebody else whilst talking about apples called them "fruit".
Landlords aren't necessarily rent-seekers (though some individuals conceivable could be) as economists use the term, and your lack of understanding of economic rent-seeking is something you can fix.
Providing a home is a benefit to the society.
Credit processors (what you're calling "banks") provide a service to merchants. They are also not rent-seeking.
Please suggest a solution.
I don't know if this is the right place for it, but an idea I've had:
Charge a high tax penalty on home ownership if the home is fully functional and livable, but spends over a certain percentage of the year unoccupied by any person as their primary residence (and a steadily accumulating tax for any home that spends too many years in an unlivable state)
This might put pressure back on landlords to put their homes on market for reasonable prices, instead of inflating their rents based on MBA recommendations long past what people can pay simply to "keep the property value high". It would severely devalue the idea of owning homes the same way you would own piles of gold, as long-term investments people are hesitant to actually use.
Would the tax be federal, state, or local level?
How does one prove occupancy to show they aren't subject to this tax?
How would the tax authority determine the same in order to prove noncompliance?
Does this effectively prohibit second and third homes? Am I allowed to put real property in a holding company?
I'm not trying to start a ruckus here, just asking questions. It's a big problem but I'm not sure if tax is the solution. Usually when people suggest solving problems with taxes it isn't fully thought through and doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
I can't claim to know the benefits of state, local, or fed taxes. Like a lot of things, I imagine it's better trialed on a local then state level, and might never reach federal.
Like a lot of tax claims, it may just be reliant on claims, and would not always require proof. You file for taxes, you report 3 homes, you state which one you occupied; or you state that you had a tenant in that home. If you're audited on your taxes, they may find you falsely reported a tenant, which would be tax fraud. The IRS could find reason to audit someone if, for instance, they're freely posting on Facebook "Yeah, just say you have tenants who do not wish to be named, they can't do anything about it". Many tax rules already work by self-reporting, and/or finding conflicts in prior documentation.
It would not prohibit third homes, but you'd have to pay a hefty property tax to hold onto an extra home and require it to stay empty while people are out there homeless. So, you'd have to be rich and not care that simply owning these properties bleeds you money (which is the opposite of how being rich usually works - your properties generate so much value by "existing" that you can simply persist a high quality of life just off residual income)
Pretty sure a tax like that at the federal level would be unconstitutional. The 16th amendment authorizes an income tax, not a real estate tax on empty houses. State and local level attempts to do that would be a prieoners dilemma situation. Good for everyone overall if everybody cooperated, but too much incentive to be the one county or state that doesn't tax the shit out of rich people for their third home, thus attracting the wealthy there.
Again I agree in principle but idk if tax is a feasible solution. (I'm a cpa btw for whatever that's worth.)
Landlords fulfill their contract and do the work? I thought that was clear
That isn't clear at all because it seems like all the vitriol in this thread is about the very concept of owning real property and renting it to someone who wants to rent. This thread is not at all about landlords not fulfilling their contractual obligations. All I'm seeing here is "fuck landlords and big bad mean rich people" and it's really childish and immature. Nobody has suggested a viable alternative yet to that, including you.
I want responding to the entire thread, only to you
So out of context and irrelevant to the discussion at hand, got it.