Good question. I didnt think of this. Maybe one needs to make an exception for hotels or something? Obviously this would need to be restricted so residential homes dont get transformed to hotels en masse.
I have extended family that fall into “lower-upper class” but also know their income has an end date (comes from a lucrative career). They saved up and every time one of their kids turned 18, they bought a house to use as a rental property with a “just in case, my child will never end up homeless” gameplan. Not a huge cash expenditure for them and not a huge profit center, it bought them peace of mind a WHOLE lot cheaper overall than adding an apartment to their house for him to move back into as an adult.
I always found that reasonable, and it did in fact keep them from ending up with a basically homeless 30-something.
I understand the idea and its great if they were able to do that but the world would look a lot different if they would actually do it differently. There would be more houses to buy and they would be cheaper, their money would need to be put in other things to collect interest. The kids would be able to buy the houses themselves at 18 and the parents would have the same outcome, just bad actors would not be able to buy up the market.
To be clear: your extended family is not the problem imo and would not suffer from a law like this.
I understand the idea and its great if they were able to do that but the world would look a lot different if they would actually do it differently
I don’t think anyone has demonstrated that’s true. If everyone but megacorporations stopped owning property other than the one they live in, I don’t thin housing prices or rent would go down. In fact, it would have unexpected side-effects like increased rental rates (since you’d have to jump through even more hoops). Imagine if you will, the pre-flip car lease market. Owning cars was the way of the poor, leasing a new car every few years was the way of the rich. If only owner-occupied could be rentals, rent would skyrocket and the MANY people who want to rent would have to fight with each other. Consortiums would find a legal way to buy luxury rental buildings and have a dedicated “owner” live in them. As you implied, supply and demand. A lot of people don’t want the liability of property ownership for reasons other than “being too poor to buy a house”.
There would be more houses to buy and they would be cheaper, their money would need to be put in other things to collect interest
Yeah, it would collect more interest. So long as nothing happened to them (which it hasn’t), they’d end up a lot richer. But it’s a lot more risk because if something did happen to them, it would be harder for that money to be earmarked into a trust in the kids’ name like the houses are. So they would have had to live with the real risk that their son would end up homeless, but yay they’d have a lot more money.
The problem with a lot of people suggesting real-estate reform is that they don’t understand why individuals (not big businesses, that’s different) buy rental houses. It’s rarely about maximizing profit, it’s about minimizing or mitigating risk.
To be clear: your extended family is not the problem imo and would not suffer from a law like this.
Except, it sounds like you just said they would not be allowed to do what they did, and would be stuck with riskier propositions. Those houses were purchased under little LLCs so that if they got sued into bankruptcy their kids would still have a home (they themselves are under Homestead protections like most homeowners in my state). Not that they expected to be sued, but it’s called “doing anything to make sure my kids don’t end up on the street”. That’s what happens when you grow up in poverty. And there really is no better, simpler, and more reasonable way to make sure your kid won’t be homeless than to buy them a house. And if you’re not filthy rich, that doesn’t mean buying it cash and handing it to them on a silver platter. (technically, I think that silver-platter method would still be allowed under the plan I’m objecting to because the kids would have an owner-occupied house in their name… yay rich people I guess. My family isn’t rich enough for that)
I think you made valid points there. I‘m not familiar with any of the anti bankruptcy measures you just named. Sounds like your family did their research.
To be honest, I still dont think your family is the problem but I dont feel like this is a fair discussion among equals.
I said my piece and you questioning my motives kind of unnerves me. Is your family privileged? Absolutely! Is it fair to the others that they are able to buy homes and even keep them if they fucked up financially while most other lose everything? Not in my opinion.
But I‘m still not after families that try to secure their childrens future. As a privileged person, you might want to add some empathy to your answers in the future.
I’m not questioning your motives directly. I’m suggesting that the changes you’re looking for are still going to cause more harm than good to most people.
Is your family privileged? Absolutely! Is it fair to the others that they are able to buy homes and even keep them if they fucked up financially while most other lose everything? Not in my opinion.
Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut? I’m not a capitalist, but I still firmly believe you need to show your work when you want to take action that hurts the lower 99% to “even the playing field”.
As a privileged person, you might want to add some empathy to your answers in the future.
You just wrongly accused me of not having af air discussion among equals, and then you pull this? The only thing you know about me is that someone in my extended family has made enough money in their life to buy two rental properties. They don’t owe me anything. How does that make me privileged?
Further, you’re accusing me of lacking empathy. Why? I have the same problem with preventing them from buying a house as you would have if I said we needed to kick EVERYONE out of their homes because somebody out there is homeless. It’s the same thing to me. It’s obviously not the same thing to you. Do I get to say you lack empathy because of it? Because I don’t plan to. Instead, I like to engage as to why that’s a bad idea.
I think there should be some leeway for people who own one home, but want to temporarily live in another city, so they rent their home while living in another rental property at the other city.
I think that is something that could be discussed but we‘d need to make sure peeps wouldn’t just search for a way to circumvent the law (which is always a problem).
True, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be easy to do. If you own more than one home, BAM, penalty tax that is equal to 100% on the rent on that property. If your second home is empty, BAM, quadruple the property tax. You’ve just made owning a second home impossible to profit from.
Funnily enough, between the time I wrote the comment you replied to, and the time I saw your response I thought of a loophole capitalists could exploit which needs to be addressed.
If corporations aren’t allowed to own residential properties, and a person is only allowed to own a single home, a capitalist could find a person who doesn’t own a home in that territory, buy them a house with the condition that they will manage the property and get 99.9% of the profit it generates. That way, a corporation could go business as usual while technically being compliant…
The proposed law needs to include a section that addresses these sort of loopholes.
I already thought of this as a potential loophole but chose to ignore it since there will be a ton more. Imo, the law should be made as vague as possible and include something like „if a company by any means gains the ability to own or control residential buildings, they should pay twice the amount of revenue (not profit) they make of it. In repeating cases, all people involved with the transaction as well as all directors of said company face up to 10 years in prison.
I think laws should be as clear as possible, not vague. By making a law vague, you’re leaving it for the courts to interpret, and there are plenty of Florida judges who would absolutely stretch their interpretation of the law in a way that conforms to their beliefs.
But I completely agree that making it a criminal act to attempt to circumvent this law would be a key here. Maybe even forcefully dissolving the company entirely for repeating offenders.
The first part is tricky as it entirely depends on who the offender is. The fact there are sick individuals at the wheel in the US is hardly shocking to me. But in most other countries the judges are still somewhat decent people but bigotted lawyers will find ways around clear cut laws.
Through my experience with both, the legal system and being an executive, I can tell you that its mostly psychopaths - either as lawyers or clients - that will use this to their advantage.
But I guess you‘re right. If we can make it illegal to circumvent this law, it doesnt need to be as vague as possible.
Little food for thought: if the legal system is corrupted, its not a legal system but a control scheme.
Easy solution in my opinion:
No more vacation homes/apartments?
Good question. I didnt think of this. Maybe one needs to make an exception for hotels or something? Obviously this would need to be restricted so residential homes dont get transformed to hotels en masse.
Sounds great. When do we announce our international party to our voters?
You do what you want, it’s your cabin
I have extended family that fall into “lower-upper class” but also know their income has an end date (comes from a lucrative career). They saved up and every time one of their kids turned 18, they bought a house to use as a rental property with a “just in case, my child will never end up homeless” gameplan. Not a huge cash expenditure for them and not a huge profit center, it bought them peace of mind a WHOLE lot cheaper overall than adding an apartment to their house for him to move back into as an adult.
I always found that reasonable, and it did in fact keep them from ending up with a basically homeless 30-something.
I understand the idea and its great if they were able to do that but the world would look a lot different if they would actually do it differently. There would be more houses to buy and they would be cheaper, their money would need to be put in other things to collect interest. The kids would be able to buy the houses themselves at 18 and the parents would have the same outcome, just bad actors would not be able to buy up the market.
To be clear: your extended family is not the problem imo and would not suffer from a law like this.
I don’t think anyone has demonstrated that’s true. If everyone but megacorporations stopped owning property other than the one they live in, I don’t thin housing prices or rent would go down. In fact, it would have unexpected side-effects like increased rental rates (since you’d have to jump through even more hoops). Imagine if you will, the pre-flip car lease market. Owning cars was the way of the poor, leasing a new car every few years was the way of the rich. If only owner-occupied could be rentals, rent would skyrocket and the MANY people who want to rent would have to fight with each other. Consortiums would find a legal way to buy luxury rental buildings and have a dedicated “owner” live in them. As you implied, supply and demand. A lot of people don’t want the liability of property ownership for reasons other than “being too poor to buy a house”.
Yeah, it would collect more interest. So long as nothing happened to them (which it hasn’t), they’d end up a lot richer. But it’s a lot more risk because if something did happen to them, it would be harder for that money to be earmarked into a trust in the kids’ name like the houses are. So they would have had to live with the real risk that their son would end up homeless, but yay they’d have a lot more money.
The problem with a lot of people suggesting real-estate reform is that they don’t understand why individuals (not big businesses, that’s different) buy rental houses. It’s rarely about maximizing profit, it’s about minimizing or mitigating risk.
Except, it sounds like you just said they would not be allowed to do what they did, and would be stuck with riskier propositions. Those houses were purchased under little LLCs so that if they got sued into bankruptcy their kids would still have a home (they themselves are under Homestead protections like most homeowners in my state). Not that they expected to be sued, but it’s called “doing anything to make sure my kids don’t end up on the street”. That’s what happens when you grow up in poverty. And there really is no better, simpler, and more reasonable way to make sure your kid won’t be homeless than to buy them a house. And if you’re not filthy rich, that doesn’t mean buying it cash and handing it to them on a silver platter. (technically, I think that silver-platter method would still be allowed under the plan I’m objecting to because the kids would have an owner-occupied house in their name… yay rich people I guess. My family isn’t rich enough for that)
I think you made valid points there. I‘m not familiar with any of the anti bankruptcy measures you just named. Sounds like your family did their research.
To be honest, I still dont think your family is the problem but I dont feel like this is a fair discussion among equals.
I said my piece and you questioning my motives kind of unnerves me. Is your family privileged? Absolutely! Is it fair to the others that they are able to buy homes and even keep them if they fucked up financially while most other lose everything? Not in my opinion.
But I‘m still not after families that try to secure their childrens future. As a privileged person, you might want to add some empathy to your answers in the future.
I’m not questioning your motives directly. I’m suggesting that the changes you’re looking for are still going to cause more harm than good to most people.
Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut? I’m not a capitalist, but I still firmly believe you need to show your work when you want to take action that hurts the lower 99% to “even the playing field”.
You just wrongly accused me of not having af air discussion among equals, and then you pull this? The only thing you know about me is that someone in my extended family has made enough money in their life to buy two rental properties. They don’t owe me anything. How does that make me privileged?
Further, you’re accusing me of lacking empathy. Why? I have the same problem with preventing them from buying a house as you would have if I said we needed to kick EVERYONE out of their homes because somebody out there is homeless. It’s the same thing to me. It’s obviously not the same thing to you. Do I get to say you lack empathy because of it? Because I don’t plan to. Instead, I like to engage as to why that’s a bad idea.
I think there should be some leeway for people who own one home, but want to temporarily live in another city, so they rent their home while living in another rental property at the other city.
I think that is something that could be discussed but we‘d need to make sure peeps wouldn’t just search for a way to circumvent the law (which is always a problem).
True, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be easy to do. If you own more than one home, BAM, penalty tax that is equal to 100% on the rent on that property. If your second home is empty, BAM, quadruple the property tax. You’ve just made owning a second home impossible to profit from.
Okay! Bold but I like it.
We need folks to run with this for political offices though.
Funnily enough, between the time I wrote the comment you replied to, and the time I saw your response I thought of a loophole capitalists could exploit which needs to be addressed.
If corporations aren’t allowed to own residential properties, and a person is only allowed to own a single home, a capitalist could find a person who doesn’t own a home in that territory, buy them a house with the condition that they will manage the property and get 99.9% of the profit it generates. That way, a corporation could go business as usual while technically being compliant…
The proposed law needs to include a section that addresses these sort of loopholes.
I already thought of this as a potential loophole but chose to ignore it since there will be a ton more. Imo, the law should be made as vague as possible and include something like „if a company by any means gains the ability to own or control residential buildings, they should pay twice the amount of revenue (not profit) they make of it. In repeating cases, all people involved with the transaction as well as all directors of said company face up to 10 years in prison.
I think laws should be as clear as possible, not vague. By making a law vague, you’re leaving it for the courts to interpret, and there are plenty of Florida judges who would absolutely stretch their interpretation of the law in a way that conforms to their beliefs.
But I completely agree that making it a criminal act to attempt to circumvent this law would be a key here. Maybe even forcefully dissolving the company entirely for repeating offenders.
I fully agree on the second part.
The first part is tricky as it entirely depends on who the offender is. The fact there are sick individuals at the wheel in the US is hardly shocking to me. But in most other countries the judges are still somewhat decent people but bigotted lawyers will find ways around clear cut laws.
Through my experience with both, the legal system and being an executive, I can tell you that its mostly psychopaths - either as lawyers or clients - that will use this to their advantage.
But I guess you‘re right. If we can make it illegal to circumvent this law, it doesnt need to be as vague as possible.
Little food for thought: if the legal system is corrupted, its not a legal system but a control scheme.