In reply to pheller :
You keep using sweeping generalizations.
Show me an owner with a vacant rentable piece of property and a "stack of rental applications". I'm calling BS on that one.
You are assuming you know the reasons properties are vacant. You don't.
pheller said:It's not about compelling - it about a system of taxation that more fairly applies a tax to the LAND not the structure on it.
Which is a fancy name for compulsion. Either economic compulsion (indirectly via high taxes) or legal compulsion (directly via seizure for failure to pay high taxes).
All the lipstick in the world won't change this pig. You are espousing the threat of governmental compulsion to force people to do what you think is right. Calling it "efficient" or "fair" does not change that bald fact.
In reply to pheller :
Here are 2 acres for $425K in Flagstaff. Get a loan on your house so you have the risk, and feel free to develop it however you'd like.
pheller said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
Perhaps this would be simple for you to understand.
Lets say that salt water aquariums are banned. You want a salt water aquarium. I tell you to move someplace where they aren't illegal.
Would you sooner move, say, to another country, in order to have a salt water aquarium, or would you rather change that laws that prevent it?
Except that private ownership of a given piece of real estate isn't banned - though you sure as hell sound like you wish it was.
Say salt water aquariums are in high demand in Fishtown, where Steve happens to live. A small number of fish enthusiasts have bought most of them up.
I say Steve has the options of paying a lot for his salt water aquarium locally, or going somewhere salt water aquariums fit his budget better.
You say "society" - by which you mean The Government - should have the right to seize the fish enthusiasts' collection of aquariums and sell them to undefined "others" like Steve for a price that "society" deems "fair".
I keep telling you, no matter how you dress this up, it's still Authoritarianism at its core. Socialist Authoritarianism. There really is no way around it.
pheller said:If you're hoarding land that is valuable to someone else, and the only reason you own that land is because your father's father's father acquired that land hundreds of years ago, you are denying the use of that land to future generations unless they pay you for it.
Citation needed.
The average period of holding for commercial property is 5-7 years in the US. You're the one charging private familial hoarding of real estate, so show us actual evidence that this is occurring to any great degree.
That aside, studies have shown that the best way to maximize return on investment for commercial property is to hold onto it for fewer than 3 years, or more than 13. But that doesn't jibe with what you think is "right".
Maybe I'm going about this wrong.
Would those of you involved in this conversation be ok with your property taxes be entirely based on your land value, with no tax assessed on the structures of the land?
of course, the tax on land would need to come up to cover the local budgets, but you'd now be free to build out your property without worry of it raising your taxes. However, if your land became more valuable due to say, a new high paying employer near by, there wouldn't be any way of avoiding those taxes.
In reply to pheller :
Would YOU be ok with the devaluation in the value of the land that would result from changing the zoning from commercial to residential as you are proposing?
The loss of tax revenue would have to be spread across the other taxpayers (like you) in the form of tax increases.
In reply to pheller :
Why would I be OK?
Say I own two lots right next to each other in a popular town. One property is vacant, one has my house on it.
My house requires utilities (water, sewer, power) and services (police / fire / emergency protection, trash and snow removal, library access, education, etc). All the conveniences of modern suburban life.
My empty lot requires none of those things until I build a house on it, or I sell it to someone who does. You could make a slight argument that it requires police protection, but an empty lot isn't really going to require much of that. Basic minimal property tax should cover it.
You're still avoiding the point about what right "society" has to dictate how private property is used or maintained (as long as the property in question is not an active nuisance to the community). Merely being held idle is NOT a valid definition of nuisance as long as the property is kept in decent repair.
pheller said:It's not about compelling
Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you've ever proposed a way for businesses to both sell their vacant properties and suffer no net harm.
How do you suggest we compensate them for all of the reasons they were holding onto the vacant properties in the first place (tax benefits, credit worthiness, future expansion ability, etc.) and how do you suggest we compensate them for all of their liquidation costs including reduced property value due to so many properties flooding the market at the same time.
I'm sorry my friend but if you haven't worked these details out, you absolutely are compelling them....you're basically saying "if you think all the harm listed about is bad, wait until you see the pain we've got planned for you if you don't sell".
Transportation is a basic societal need.
How bout we implement a tax on anyone who is hoarding cars and not driving them so that single moms and low income people can have them to drive to work?
You really don't see how bad an idea this is?
Duke said:pheller said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
Perhaps this would be simple for you to understand.
Lets say that salt water aquariums are banned. You want a salt water aquarium. I tell you to move someplace where they aren't illegal.
Would you sooner move, say, to another country, in order to have a salt water aquarium, or would you rather change that laws that prevent it?
Except that private ownership of a given piece of real estate isn't banned - though you sure as hell sound like you wish it was.
Say salt water aquariums are in high demand in Fishtown, where Steve happens to live. A small number of fish enthusiasts have bought most of them up.
I say Steve has the options of paying a lot for his salt water aquarium locally, or going somewhere salt water aquariums fit his budget better.
You say "society" - by which you mean The Government - should have the right to seize the fish enthusiasts' collection of aquariums and sell them to undefined "others" like Steve for a price that "society" deems "fair".
I keep telling you, no matter how you dress this up, it's still Authoritarianism at its core. Socialist Authoritarianism. There really is no way around it.
I hear the former Soviet countries are nice.
SV reX said:Transportation is a basic societal need.
How bout we implement a tax on anyone who is hoarding cars and not driving them so that single moms and low income people can have them to drive to work?
You really don't see how bad an idea this is?
It exists in some jurisdictions, it's called road tax or registration cost, I've paid it. That said, the kind of artificial scarcity that's been created for housing doesn't exist for cars so the situation is far from comparable. The values of new cars drop like a rock as the shine wears off and they threaten to give trouble, and repairable cars get sold off for a song and dance or scrapped for pocket money all the time, because to most owners they're not worth the trouble compared to buying another good one. Try to imagine how cheap houses would need to be before we'd see the same kinds of effects on their values.
One thing I did benefit from was replacing an annual road tax with a fuel tax. That made car ownership cheaper for multiple-car owners and more expensive for people who do a lot of driving, I didn't ask for it and if there were a referendum/liquid democracy I would've voted against it because it effectively made the road tax system more regressive.
We already charge property tax.
How is changing the way we charge property tax authoritarian?
RX Reven' said:pheller said:It's not about compelling
Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you've ever proposed a way for businesses to both sell their vacant properties and suffer no net harm.
How do you suggest we compensate them for all of the reasons they were holding onto the vacant properties in the first place (tax benefits, credit worthiness, future expansion ability, etc.) and how do you suggest we compensate them for all of their liquidation costs including reduced property value due to so many properties flooding the market at the same time.
I'm sorry my friend but if you haven't worked these details out, you absolutely are compelling them....you're basically saying "if you think all the harm listed about is bad, wait until you see the pain we've got planned for you if you don't sell".
Ahh ok so now you get it.
But you also understand that this admits that our current system isn't ideal, it's just propped up on bullE36 M3 that has existed for decades.
Duke said:All the lipstick in the world won't change this pig. You are espousing the threat of governmental compulsion to force people to do what you think is right. Calling it "efficient" does not change that bald fact.
IMO the lipsticked pig in the room is a system of property rights that allows the accrual of ridiculous excesses and profiting from artificial scarcity at the cost of being able to fulfill society's basic needs.
pheller said:We already charge property tax.
How is changing the way we charge property tax authoritarian?
Because you're planning to use those changes to force people to do what you want them to do, or suffer the consequences.
Surely you can see this? Or is that just acceptable because it's what you want them to do?
In reply to GameboyRMH :
There is no "artificial scarcity" of housing in general.
There is a scarcity of inexpensive housing in highly desirable areas.
To harken back to the single digit pages of this thread, let me introduce you to two words:
SUPPLY
DEMAND
That is not the same thing as "artificial scarcity" at all.
Oh there is definitely an artificial scarcity, and it affects far more than the unicorn of an inexpensive dwelling in a highly desirable area:
https://www.nber.org/digest/sep05/manmade-scarcity-drives-housing-prices
pheller said:But you also understand that this admits that our current system isn't ideal, it's just propped up on bullE36 M3 that has existed for decades.
Isn't ideal for whom? It's ideal for the people that took the risk to see if the reward was there. You're not willing to take that risk, yet have disdain for those that did, why? If YOU won't take the chance, YOU don't get the reward, it's not hard to understand.
GameboyRMH said:Oh there is definitely an artificial scarcity, and it affects far more than the unicorn of an inexpensive dwelling in a highly desirable area:
https://www.nber.org/digest/sep05/manmade-scarcity-drives-housing-prices
Your article says - RIGHT AT THE TOP IN VERY LARGE ITALICS:
"The evidence points toward a man-made scarcity of housing in the sense that the housing supply has been constrained by government regulation as opposed to fundamental geographic limitations, especially in the last two or three decades."
So please DO explain how this is the result of evil greedy capitalist land-hoarders?
And how yet more government regulation is supposed to solve the problem of... government regulation?
In reply to Duke :
You sure you want him to explain? We all know what his answer is.
Steve_Jones said:Isn't ideal for whom? It's ideal for the people that took the risk to see if the reward was there. You're not willing to take that risk, yet have disdain for those that did, why? If YOU won't take the chance, YOU don't get the reward, it's not hard to understand.
Probably the same reason I can't buy an empty commercial building and turn it into rental apartments etc, he didn't have stupendous amounts of excess money lying around to afford an "investment" property in the first place, to say nothing of taking risky gambles with it for profit.
I think rewarding financial risk so heavily to the detriment of workers is another flaw in the system. If society needs to choose between being ideal for workers or gamblers, I know which one I rely on for goods and services...
Duke said:
"The evidence points toward a man-made scarcity of housing in the sense that the housing supply has been constrained by government regulation as opposed to fundamental geographic limitations, especially in the last two or three decades."
So please DO explain how this is the result of evil greedy capitalist land-hoarders?
And how yet more government regulation is supposed to solve the problem of... government regulation?
The land-hoarders supported the regulation with their votes and lobbying (mostly votes, as most of them were individual homeowners who either didn't know or care what they were doing in the long term and just wanted their home values to go up).
More regulation is supposed to solve the problem of government regulation by replacing the old broken rules with new ones that aren't broken. Not necessarily *more* other than in the sense of applying a new set of it, but different.
I hope I lived up to expectations SVreX.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Yep. Same ol stuff.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
So, the "land hoarders" are individual homeowners who are ignorant and greedy?
You are ridiculously predictable.
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