Grandma is on her own
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Not really, but it sounds like your family should rather sell that cabin and spend their money on more important things.
"Hey you know that activity that you enjoy, that makes the tedium and tests of life a bit more bearable? The one that provides a hub to maintain familial bonds, and adds another source of food that isn't factory farmed or ultra-processed to your diet?
That isn't how you're supposed to spend your money, so stop it."
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It's hard when you work with a guy like I do. He's 65 and hates absolutely everybody, including his wife, but he's a coward so he's very polite. He requires so much coddling that he spends all day sucking up to everyone for whatever praise he can get then immediately turns around and complains about them. He'll complain about everyone else to the point where they get their breaks and other privileges taken away. Those privileges are also taken from him, giving him more to complain about.
It gets worse, but I'm about to go to bed and don't want to think about that.
That piece of fucking shit. Sorry about the rant. But guys like that ruin everything for everybody.
It seems like that is more of an asshole problem than an age problem
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"Hey you know that activity that you enjoy, that makes the tedium and tests of life a bit more bearable? The one that provides a hub to maintain familial bonds, and adds another source of food that isn't factory farmed or ultra-processed to your diet?
That isn't how you're supposed to spend your money, so stop it."
The key point you're missing, I think, is that the tax would increase exponentially for each additional house owned. The first one could be, say, a 0.5% tax increase, and it could go up from there.
If you're in a position where paying 0.5% extra tax on your hunting cabin split 5 ways will bankrupt you, then I'd argue that it isn't how you're supposed to spend your money. That's "Skip eating out once a year" territory.
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The key point you're missing, I think, is that the tax would increase exponentially for each additional house owned. The first one could be, say, a 0.5% tax increase, and it could go up from there.
If you're in a position where paying 0.5% extra tax on your hunting cabin split 5 ways will bankrupt you, then I'd argue that it isn't how you're supposed to spend your money. That's "Skip eating out once a year" territory.
Nah, I'm not opposed to the proposition, and understandably any such tax law (if legislated with due consideration) should take into account cases where the effect may be otherwise than intended (or be amended with further subsequent legislation). Corporate squatting is a literal travesty.
I was just a bit baffled at the gall of supposing that the cost/benefit calculation of this kind of lifestyle choice could be up for second-hand proscription.
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This is true, but if I take the top comment, we have 28 houses/homes per homeless person - subtract the 2 holiday homes and you still got 25
Buy 25 homes, get a free homeless person.
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Did you do the right thing and put her down?
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My extended family in Michigan keeps a hunting cabin that they split costs between 5 people on and can still barely make the mortage... Is that clearly able to afford more taxes?
I'd sacrifice your family's hunting cabin if it helps house more people. Find a sixth person or something.
It's an edge case that shouldn't hold up societal progress.
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3 houses could be free (1 home, 1 for summer, 1 for winter)
Nah fam you got three homes you can pay up
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Nah fam you got three homes you can pay up
Don’t forget how many people own three homes in the first place. You might need their votes.
Also, if one inherits their grandparents home and wants to give it their own children but must wait for 2-3 years, they might be forced to sell too.
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Don’t forget how many people own three homes in the first place. You might need their votes.
Also, if one inherits their grandparents home and wants to give it their own children but must wait for 2-3 years, they might be forced to sell too.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The number of people who have three homes in this country I doubt is a huge number. And to be honest most of them are probably right-leaning anyway.
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Most people aren't homeless because there is no house available no.
You want to tax just having that second home
Most people aren't homeless because there is no house available
It's amazing how I can add the word "affordable" to your statement and you're suddenly wrong.
You see this as wanting to tax second homes while ignoring that tons of people are homeless because they can't afford to live somewhere because of shitheads holding onto empty housing as an investment at the expense of the common person.
So yeah, let's tax any house left unoccupied for more than half the year. If you can afford to have 2 houses, you can afford to pay more for the one you don't live in so maybe we can free up some of them and lower the cost of housing.
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3 houses could be free (1 home, 1 for summer, 1 for winter)
wrote on last edited by [email protected]If you can afford 3 houses, you can afford the extra tax on 2 or all 3 of them. And if you can't, maybe you don't need that many fucking houses....
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Same. We have to get private equity out of homes, but telling people on the edges that they will get caught up is going to make it a tough sell. Even if we account for the example above, another family that wasn't on the edge of affordability might be after the change.
With something like this we may need to offer buybacks or short loved exemptions of some sort.
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I'd sacrifice your family's hunting cabin if it helps house more people. Find a sixth person or something.
It's an edge case that shouldn't hold up societal progress.
The added tax revenue would also make the rural places these vacation home are in more sustainable for regular residents. And probably keep local governments and even small hospitals solvent.
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Buy 25 homes, get a free homeless person.
Gotta catch them all
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So you're saying granny would be fine with a 100% return on her investment at $36 for an offer? No? Shocked I say, shocked.
Granny is part of the problem. Not the biggest part of the pie, but still guilty.
Inflation is a thing that exists. Saying that someone is bad simply because they want to update the value of their property is dumb. Also, let's say granny wants to downisze. Should she sell her home for a value way below market and then be unable to buy a smaller home for herself?
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Most people aren't homeless because there is no house available
It's amazing how I can add the word "affordable" to your statement and you're suddenly wrong.
You see this as wanting to tax second homes while ignoring that tons of people are homeless because they can't afford to live somewhere because of shitheads holding onto empty housing as an investment at the expense of the common person.
So yeah, let's tax any house left unoccupied for more than half the year. If you can afford to have 2 houses, you can afford to pay more for the one you don't live in so maybe we can free up some of them and lower the cost of housing.
There will still be a lot of people homeless even with affordable houses since they most likely cannot afford a house.
Social housing doesn't have to be affordable, it just needs to be there, but that has little to do with the availability of houses and more the amount of people that can be processed by the system. At least in NL.The issue all around the globe is people owning more than one house. You can only live in one so they rent them out. Generally asking way to much since they took a mortgage for it, costs are deductable against the profit. So you always end up paying the mortgage rate for the house you rent + a profit margin for the owner.
If you stop people having 2, 3 or more houses or at least make it a lot less likely for people to own more than one. In NL some people are also debating if we should remove the deductibility of mortgage rates.
Houses costing 1m or more being empty doesn't do anything for the homeless, they will not be able to afford that. A lot of the houses in the empty house statistics are include houses being built/renovated/destroyed etc. Heck in the US (and other countries) you have some ghost towns, are those counted as well? Or houses that are rented out for tourists? How many of them where empty for more than 6 months?
Taxing empty houses is fine, don't get me wrong, but the not building medium density houses, places where you can walk and/or bike and actually want to live, the lack of social security and people owning 2 or more houses are issues as well.
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The problem that there are many homeless outweighs the problem that somebody wants to have a holiday home. Soliving the homeless problem by not solving the holiday home problem is valid.
I think many people (USians in particular) need to have it described to them this simply.
It’s just assumed in so many situations that somebody’s right to enjoy their legally-acquired property supercedes any concerns about the life or suffering of others living in the same system.
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I'd sacrifice your family's hunting cabin if it helps house more people. Find a sixth person or something.
It's an edge case that shouldn't hold up societal progress.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]No, it shouldn't hold up societal progress. But not being aware of how your policies actually affect people is just plain bad. I agree with progressive taxes on multi house ownership, but you also need to understand that will mean people who are less rich than you think losing them, it's not just people that can afford them. And it's not as far an edge case as you think, I believe
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I've said this before (and caught flak for it) but I think the solution to this is to apply a heavy additional tax to vacant homes (as defined as any home that isn't occupied by a permanent resident for more than 6 months a year), and increase the tax exponentially for each residence beyond the first owned by the same company or individual.
At some point, you make it so expensive to keep unoccupied properties that they're better off letting people live there for free than continuing to let them go unoccupied. Use all of the proceeds from this tax to assist homeless people or build new dense housing developments.
"But Kobold, what about soandso with their summer home?" If you can afford a second home, you can afford to pay a bit more tax on it to benefit the public good.
"But Kobold, a lot of those homes that are vacant are run-down, or are in places nobody actually wants to live!" Doesn't matter. If they're vacant, tax them. Use the money to build dense housing in the places where people do want to live. If the place is too run-down to be occupied, the owner can tear it down and do something else with it.
Been shouting this for fucking ages.
