Don’t protect “renters”. The entire concept of “renting” needs to die in a fucking fire.
Instead, we need to jack up taxes on residential properties. Send them to the moon. $2000/yr? Fuck that: $2000/month.
But nobody actually pays these exorbitant rates, because we create an “Owner Occupancy Credit”. The tax rate is only high if the owner doesn’t live in the home.
What happens to renters? Do landlords jack up their prices to cover the increased property taxes? Or do they offer their tenants a private mortgage or a land contract, so they don’t have to pay the hiked taxes?
Establish an owner occupancy credit, and “landlords” will be fighting tooth and nail to convert tenants into buyers.
(The actual tax rate should target an 85% owner occupancy rate. When more than 20% of the population is renting, the non-occupant tax rate is increased 1% per year. When less than 10% is renting, the non-occupant tax rate is dropped 1% per year. )
Yeah, many states have similar credits or exemptions for various purposes. From my brief research, it seems the STAR credit is not available to new homeowners. It’s only available to people who are grandfathered in. But, it works much like I describe: a credit for owner occupants.
Ohio has a “Homestead Exemption” allowing disabled and elderly homeowners to deduct $25,000 of the market value of their residence.
We can do the same thing for purposes of discouraging corporate and investor ownership of residential property, and encouraging occupant ownership.
it seems the STAR credit is not available to new homeowners. It’s only available to people who are grandfathered in.
You might be looking at the enhancement STAR which has more complex requirements. Here is the PDF for new homeowners and here is the actual eligibility page.
edit: OH you are looking at the STAR exemption vs the STAR credit. Yeah it’s basically the same thing. One is applied to your taxes before you receive your tax bill (and is being phased out since 2015) and the other is a direct deposit you receive. Same amount.
Duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes could all have an owner living in one of the units, making the whole property eligible for the owner occupant credit, while the other units remain available for rent.
Bringing this back to your comment, suppose instead of dividing a complex into individual units, we divided it into a “quadplex” condo. A single property consisting of 4 units. The owner of that property occupies the quadplex, making the quadplex-condo eligible for the owner-occupant credit. 3/4 of the apartments are still rentable.
there’d be a lot of poorly maintained buildings no one would want to actually own part of
Somebody is making money off of those poorly maintained apartment buildings now. Better that somebody be someone who is actually part of the community than a hedge fund manager living on the other side of the country.
Landlord has to live on-site. In what I fondly call “face-punching distance.” And can only collect a monthly salary equal to 3x the median rental price of all of the units in that building. Any surplus profit after paying utilities, taxes, and maintenance cost (to maintenance people who either also live on site or are at least paid 3x the rent of a median unit), gets refunded to the tenants.
Nah, nonprofit state-run landlords (in countries which have them) are great, and strong protections for renters are good. I don’t want to buy a house, I move around a lot, don’t wanna deal with lawyers every time I move, don’t wanna be responsible for maintenance, I just want some basic level of security and not to be completely ripped off.
Why is 85% the magic number? Just because you say so? I do agree that increased property taxes are important, but there’s no reason not to also make rental contracts less exploitative.
Don’t protect “renters”. The entire concept of “renting” needs to die in a fucking fire.
Instead, we need to jack up taxes on residential properties. Send them to the moon. $2000/yr? Fuck that: $2000/month.
But nobody actually pays these exorbitant rates, because we create an “Owner Occupancy Credit”. The tax rate is only high if the owner doesn’t live in the home.
What happens to renters? Do landlords jack up their prices to cover the increased property taxes? Or do they offer their tenants a private mortgage or a land contract, so they don’t have to pay the hiked taxes?
Establish an owner occupancy credit, and “landlords” will be fighting tooth and nail to convert tenants into buyers.
(The actual tax rate should target an 85% owner occupancy rate. When more than 20% of the population is renting, the non-occupant tax rate is increased 1% per year. When less than 10% is renting, the non-occupant tax rate is dropped 1% per year. )
NY has this. What you have described is the STAR tax credit. This credit only applies to school taxes (2-3k a year)
Yeah, many states have similar credits or exemptions for various purposes. From my brief research, it seems the STAR credit is not available to new homeowners. It’s only available to people who are grandfathered in. But, it works much like I describe: a credit for owner occupants.
Ohio has a “Homestead Exemption” allowing disabled and elderly homeowners to deduct $25,000 of the market value of their residence.
We can do the same thing for purposes of discouraging corporate and investor ownership of residential property, and encouraging occupant ownership.
You might be looking at the enhancement STAR which has more complex requirements. Here is the PDF for new homeowners and here is the actual eligibility page.
edit: OH you are looking at the STAR exemption vs the STAR credit. Yeah it’s basically the same thing. One is applied to your taxes before you receive your tax bill (and is being phased out since 2015) and the other is a direct deposit you receive. Same amount.
How would you handle apartment buildings?
Making them all Condo’s possible I suppose but, there’d be a lot of poorly maintained buildings no one would want to actually own part of
Duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes could all have an owner living in one of the units, making the whole property eligible for the owner occupant credit, while the other units remain available for rent.
Bringing this back to your comment, suppose instead of dividing a complex into individual units, we divided it into a “quadplex” condo. A single property consisting of 4 units. The owner of that property occupies the quadplex, making the quadplex-condo eligible for the owner-occupant credit. 3/4 of the apartments are still rentable.
Somebody is making money off of those poorly maintained apartment buildings now. Better that somebody be someone who is actually part of the community than a hedge fund manager living on the other side of the country.
Landlord has to live on-site. In what I fondly call “face-punching distance.” And can only collect a monthly salary equal to 3x the median rental price of all of the units in that building. Any surplus profit after paying utilities, taxes, and maintenance cost (to maintenance people who either also live on site or are at least paid 3x the rent of a median unit), gets refunded to the tenants.
The owner of the building lives in the building and leases apartments to tenants who live in the same building as the owner.
Nah, nonprofit state-run landlords (in countries which have them) are great, and strong protections for renters are good. I don’t want to buy a house, I move around a lot, don’t wanna deal with lawyers every time I move, don’t wanna be responsible for maintenance, I just want some basic level of security and not to be completely ripped off.
Why is 85% the magic number? Just because you say so? I do agree that increased property taxes are important, but there’s no reason not to also make rental contracts less exploitative.