2020
Fucking leeches
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
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this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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Any reason why we can't just change the tax code to make this thing less viable? We disincentive things all the time. Like we can carve out exemptions for situations and things I'm sure but like, this shouldn't be how to run a society.
99% of state and federal level politicians are owned by these leeches and/or ARE these leeches.
In other words, almost all of the people with the power to do anything about it have a vested interest in NOT doing anything about it.
Ramen.
Yep, easiest way to solve the housing crisis is a scaling tax on property ownership and rent. The first property you own is taxed relatively low, with it scaling exponentially as you add more properties.
Increase the tax rate to 100% on all profits from renting/leasing residential properties. You can still rent out housing but you can't make a profit on it.
Fwiw, while this would be a disincentive, the 'real' money from this is the ability to leverage at a high amount.
If you mortgage a property you effectively get to leverage your capital 5:1, and your return is made by someone else paying the interest on your margin, any below the line profit is a bonus.
So if it's costing my business $100 month (mortgage, losses) and the tenant is paying $100 (rent, profits), your net profit is 0 but you are effectively earning $80 on that $100.
So you would need to also reclassify what it means to be a real estate professional, to prevent business from being able to claim real estate expenses as a loss. (As well as the tons of other aspects like depreciation which give you time value of money over the life of the property, depreciation of assets within the house, and other tax benefits.) in fact it's possible to take a 'loss' on a house and rent it for less than your mortgage, and still come away making money
Just sayin there is more to it than just black and white P/L
Verbage:
I was using the more common definition of the word, not the annoying accountant one.
Of course the laws will have to be written in such a way that removes the ability of leeches to make financial gains on the back of other people.
100 in rent - 100 in mortgage cost = 0.
The gains are by the inherent value of the asset. You would need to tax the sale of the property because that is where the profit is realized.
My point isn't about a semantic difference in the definition of a word. It's that blanket policy that isn't well thought out doesn't actually solve any problems, it's helpful to take some time to actually think things through, get a better understanding of what is at play and come up with real ideas that can be actioned if you want change.
There's also building upkeep insurance and taxes to pay.
If you took every property that individual people owned and gave every one of them other people, we would still have a housing shortage with insane prices for a home. Shitty as most landlords are, the real problem is massive companies that buy up houses.