World News

22023 readers

46 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

America's housing shortage is keeping home prices high (www.axios.com)

submitted 1 year ago by lumberjacked@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

We’re also seeing a rapid increase in commercial vacancies with WFH. But there are big challenges and costs to turning commercial properties into residential.

I’ve heard a lot about the problems. Surely there’s some good ideas for a solution out there?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] lumberjacked@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I deal with a lot of small business owners and it's amazing how many of them have second homes. These guys are well-off but not what you think of as ultra wealthy. I think housing has been such a high-return investment that both corporations and individuals have been buying up houses they don't need.

Most states in the US I believe have homestead exemptions for property tax on your primary residence. Maybe if they just jacked the prop tax way up on anyone or entity that owns more than one single family property that would make it a less enticing investment.

[–] Talaraine@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly I'd scale it. There's a lot of people who don't sell their first home when they move into their second and it's helping them financially to rent it out. I don't want to go after these people...

Raise the tax per every house you're doing it with. Make it prohibitive at scale.

[–] lumberjacked@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

That's not a bad idea. Tax rate is X. First house is X. Second house is XY, third house is XY*Y, etc.

Problem is property rates are usually city, county, state so you're not going to see consistency between them.