Short of fully subsidized housing, there will always be a demand for rental properties. And even then…socialized housing would just make renting the premium option for people who can’t wait their turn. You’d end up with either premium apartments, or a lot of “Extended Stay” hotels.
Giant companies buying up properties and letting them sit vacant in order to game the unit costs of rentals are a problem.
Small independent landlords are not. Their services will always be needed as long as there’s a commercial housing market. And housing is historically a very safe place to invest savings for a lot of middle class Americans. Taxing rental properties is fine, but is should be a progressive tax on number of units, with some sort of a penalty for a large percentage of vacant unit-months. Otherwise such a tax ends up seriously fucking a lot of hardworking middle class Americans.
With you up until the property tax thing.
Short of fully subsidized housing, there will always be a demand for rental properties. And even then…socialized housing would just make renting the premium option for people who can’t wait their turn. You’d end up with either premium apartments, or a lot of “Extended Stay” hotels.
Giant companies buying up properties and letting them sit vacant in order to game the unit costs of rentals are a problem.
Small independent landlords are not. Their services will always be needed as long as there’s a commercial housing market. And housing is historically a very safe place to invest savings for a lot of middle class Americans. Taxing rental properties is fine, but is should be a progressive tax on number of units, with some sort of a penalty for a large percentage of vacant unit-months. Otherwise such a tax ends up seriously fucking a lot of hardworking middle class Americans.