First I would like to provide some context for my question. I live in a suburb in a "flyover state" and also see wealth inequality as the problem to solve for. For more information on why I feel this way, see just about any video by Gary Stevenson: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXuOBKrmFYbKytq9mkcd62sJPb6w12vpU.
I think it is safe to assume that in the next 4 years, wealth inequality will not be addressed even verbally at the national level. I suspect most states will not attempt to address this issue either. I think suburban city councils are absolutely an option for near term changes and could even be a perfect place to start. I think the odds of a major company or billionaire showing up to protest any local changes in a smaller town are relatively small.
I propose that we as a society should be able to attend a city council meeting and suggest legislation similar to the following:
Any single family home owned by either a company or an individual who does not live in the same state should have a large property tax applied to it.
My thinking is that no company should ever own a single family home (if you're a builder making a new home give them a window of like 1 year to sell it or something similar). If there are companies owning homes, they would be incentivized to sell the property. Large numbers of properties being dumped by businesses would lower housing costs locally. This would in turn lead to more locals having money to spend (hopefully locally, but you never know). I think the locality of their spending should probably be emphasized in a sales pitch to a city council. Businesses who refuse to sell will be paying large local taxes that the city could spend on the countless things that a city needs to operate but is currently underfunded. I guarantee you the local government has projects they want to do but can't afford. Here is their solution. I do think that if businesses are refusing to sell, that means they are charging tenants the increased tax, and the property tax was set too low. The tax has to be high enough that businesses sell the property or else I don't think this works.
The number of businesses or individuals affected by this new tax is probably really low for any given city. If you imagine a small town there are only going to be so many companies owning single property homes (less than 10?) same story with wealthy out of state home owners (less than 20?) The total number of homes in the area is going to be much larger though so there should be a sizeable and noticable impact. I use out of state as the qualifier for individuals as it is pretty easy to ask for a local driver's license as proof you live in the state, and to my knowledge states don't let you carry IDs from multiple states. You only live in 1, you only have 1 ID, and you always have it with you so it should be easy enough to enforce.
People/businesses who don't comply could have their property foreclosed on, then auctioned off to a state resident with proceeds again going to the city. I think the pushback would be that this is anti business. To which I would agree and say yes, businesses have no business owning single family homes, that is what citizens do. These citizens will have more money to spend locally which will attract more businesses and pay more local taxes. Money from local citizens going to major businesses who pass earnings on to investors is how local money gets exported out of the community and is not business we want owning our homes. It also diminishes the ability of locals to spend at local businesses.
My hopes is that Lemmy can help poke holes in this plan and provide solutions to the holes. Perhaps you see a better way to present this idea. Perhaps better ideas are proposed. Perhaps you see a smarter solution. Something needs to change, and I want the best odds of successfully bringing about change for the better. I want my kids to be able to buy a house some day. At this rate, that won't happen. We need a solution, and maybe this is a start.
I'd like to preface my comment by stating that I'm not American and have never lived in the US, so my knowledge of how stuff works (IDs and whatnot) is null.
That being said, surely there's records for these things. I really don't think that there needs to be a check for IDs at any point, on a personal level, because this information should be available either in the deed, and everyone's IDs are in the electronic systems at the state and federal level. So it's not that what you said about IDs is wrong, more so likely unnecessary, in a practical sense.
However, I do think there are a few problematic things here.
Say I work in NYC, NY State, but I'm originally from Vermont. I own a home in NYC and a home in Vermont. Where do I live? Mostly in NY, but I spend my summers in Vermont. What if my husband is from Maine, so I also own a home in Maine that we go to every couple of years to meet his family? What if my son lives in South Carolina, so I own a home there to go visit him? What if I own the home, never go there, but my son does live there?
These questions
and other questions in a similar vein that I couldn't even think of
need to have a clear answer, if you want this sort of legislation to be applicable.
If I live and work in Vermont, but own a whole neighborhood, what then? I'm a citizen of the state, I live in the state, I do it as an individual and not through a company. I don't see anything in what you wrote that indicates this would be a problem, but I think it is a problem and should be encompassed by legislation of the sort you suggest.
These two points, I believe, highlight the fact that living in a state is a really bad indicator of whether home ownership is beneficial. I think the primary indicators should be legal status
company vs individual
and maybe something like the percentage of available homes. As in, a certain percentage of available homes is allowed to be owned by companies or individuals for non-living purposes. That could work as a sort of cap on how the market can be manipulated by speculative real-estate investment.
Not everyone wants or needs to buy a home. You want your children to be able to buy a home, great, but what if they simply don't want to? What if they want to rent? If they move to a different state but don't think of it as a long-term or life-long place for them, they might not want to buy. They need to be able to rent from somewhere, then. Of course, if more people can buy, more people will own, and more people will be open to renting it out. However, this is a difficult proposition, I'd imagine. Renting isn't a bad thing, it's about how controlled it is, how regulated it is, and who ultimately benefits from the system.
If you're gonna force large rental companies to sell their properties, you need to have a clear plan as to how the tenants can find other places to rent from. Again, there are a lot of people that rent not because they can't afford to buy, but because they find that to be the best option for their particular situation. I think some kind of state or local buyback program could be good, and would allow the state to offer low-cost housing for many people, effectively flipping the rampant market speculation into a social service. Another thing could be to cap rent, I believe rent-control is a measure that already exists in some places. For example, if companies don't want to pay the extra taxes, they would need to fulfill a certain quota of rent-controlled tenants. Something like that.
I'm just spitballing here, but I hope my input could be of some use to you!
First, thank you for the thoughtful and detailed comment. It was really well thought out and really hit on some excellent points. This is the feedback I was hoping for. I'm a software developer by profession, not someone who writes legislation, so the whole proposition is basically spitballing until something usable comes out.
You make some really good points and I agree with them for the most part. I'm going to sit and think on this some and get back to you after I've had some time to digest it more.