Eh, probably paid like 25k for a house that's worth 500k now or something. Really what we need to do is make property taxes scale more aggressively, so it isn't economical to hoard more resources than you can actually use. Maybe something like annual tax owed = (value of all real estate owned by one person)^2/10,000,000. Perhaps with a grace period for new construction/renovations.

As for appraisal, let people declare what their property is worth, and force them to sell if someone offers 20% more than their claimed value.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

As for appraisal, let people declare what their property is worth, and force them to sell if someone offers 20% more than their claimed value.

Ah yes, force people to move out of their homes. What's lemmy's obsession with uprooting families lately?

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Land is a natural resource, and like air or sunlight, nobody deserves to own it more than anybody else.

"But my family has live here for generations!" sounds awful similar to "I deserve it because my great great grandfather killed the people that used to live here."

You get to decide how much the land is worth to you. If you value it honestly and somebody else values it higher, a trade benefits both of you.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I value your home more than you, now get the fuck out and find a new one.

In fact going by your first sentence, this system isn't even necessary. Why do you deserve to live where you do just because you paid some random person money? I deserve the land you're living on just as much as you do.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Money represents things you do deserve, like the value created by your own work, as well as things you have no moral claim to, like natural resources. What makes sense to me is that the land is owned collectively. The property taxes are effectively rent to the rest of the population, and those that consider it most valuable should get to use it. I also think there should be separate taxes for things that devalue the land, like extracting minerals. You can still make a profit from extracting minerals based on the value added by your own work, but you need to pay the rest of humanity for their share of the minerals themselves.

Have to consider both the ideal and the existing situation for the best next step. Housing is a combination of value both created by human effort, and an accumulation of natural resources. I think what I've proposed is a big step towards fair allocation of housing, but critically, also something that could actually be implemented.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago

money represents things you do deserve

Of course that means capitalists are the most deserving of all.

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Has nothing to do with "uprooting families". Average American families are not the ones grossly overestimating the values of their property. It's people like Trump who use overestimated values on their properties in order to hide money and grift people into paying him more than properties are actually worth. And then readjusting to actual values, or lower, in order to dodge taxes.

Edit: my reply was not an endorsement of OP's property assessment plan. I was only speaking to our frustration with the rich who hoard wealth in the form of land and use overinflated valuations of their property to increase their wealth at the expense of everyone else. And even though OP's idea is flawed there is merit in the idea of altering the way property value is determined.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah but under this system you'd HAVE to overestimate, otherwise it gets forcibly bought from you.

This is just going to drive prices way up till everyone is renting from one of 3 giant corpos.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Investment company comes in and buys literally everything because they can just offer 20% over value. Now they rent it out for twice as much as your mortgage cost. What are you going to do, not like there are any other houses left.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Think about what the investment company's tax rate would look like. They'd be bankrupt instantly. They'd have to pay 10M/year in taxes to maintain ownership of $10M in property.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 points 3 days ago

Sounds like a problem for the renters.

[–] piratekaiser@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That's not how this works. A better solution would be to tax more aggressively second+ homes and severely limit what corporations can invest into.

Why should a company be able to profit off of second hand housing? This isn't a commodity, but it's treated as such. Companies should be able to build new housing (for sale) and own housing only for the purposes of, say, housing their employees if they so wish. I simply see no benefits to allowing companies trade living spaces like stocks.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

What does someone deserve to own? The value created by your own work yes, but nobody deserves to own natural resources like land more than anybody else. The whole point is that you get to decide how much the property is worth to you. If it's worth more to someone else, you're both better off for the trade. The only losers here are people trying to cheat on their taxes by giving a "low" appraisal, and people trying to hoard multiple properties.

Plug some numbers into that formula. If you own a $100k property, you pay 1k in taxes/year If you own 10 of those properties, you pay 100k/year. This would mean you have to charge more in rent than a mortgage would cost to buy the same property. The business model would become unprofitable.

[–] piratekaiser@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I understand the logic of it, my point is that this is a trust/honesty based system which leaves you cornered. Here are some problems with it:

placing a low value on my house to pay less taxes exposes me to a hostile buyout
placing a realistic (e.g. around average for the region) price doesn't solve the previous problem. I'm still in danger of a hostile buyout, while also paying higher taxes. What's more, even if everyone else plays fairly, this additional % someone else paid to take my house is now the minimum added on top of their own valuation, driving prices up.
placing an unreachably high price would bankrupt me as I can't pay the taxes, so there is no scenario in which this works out for me
given a realistic and unequal economy, there will be those who can't afford to place a higher price on their house, i can just go and buy them out on sale, then rent them back to them (that one might sound familiar)

The fault in your assumption is 1. that this would discourage corporations from buying up; and 2. That you live in an equal and just society;

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The fault in your assumption is 1. that this would discourage corporations from buying up;

Did you plug in some numbers to see how much you pay when you own multiple homes? Rental units are not profitable when people can buy a house for cheaper than your property taxes on the same property. And normal people can do hostile buyouts from corporate landords too.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They can just increase rents then?

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So rent is several times more expensive than a mortgage on the same property. Now what?

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Now you pay the ridiculous rent because blackstone just buys up entire neighborhoods already, might as well buy up entire towns.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Why? You can force them to sell you a property and pay less on the mortgage than they pay on the same property on taxes.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Technically yes, but the problem is that they can afford to hold their investments in many small companies so they won't even have to pay that much tax.

Just adding government oversight for this idea is going to be a costly nightmare.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Maybe the value of real estate held by corporations is assigned proportionally to the shareholders? Maybe the tax rate is determined by whichever intermediate owner results in the highest rate.

I don't see why you can't make it enforceable and effective with less complexity than the current tax system.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago

Hmm, maybe. I still don't like the fact that some rich dude could just go and say "Hmm such a nice home they've built for themselves, I think I will forcibly buy it". There's so much more value to a home than the land it sits on and the building materials. There's a lot of sentimental value once you've lived somewhere for years or decades even.

If there was an exception for primary residences, your idea might be a lot less horrible. Again something that could likely be schemed through, but at the very least, it'd just be investment properties that get targeted. I don't give a fuck about those.

[–] Heyting@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

Socialise the housing market and make sure every person has a roof over their head. It’s the only proven solution to homelessness.

[–] Mickey7@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

I really like the self appraisal idea