111–120 of 173 posts
"“The government cannot compel a property owner to rent his or her property to third parties without violating” the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said." A vacancy tax no more compels someone to rent their property than an income tax compels me to be unemployed. Feels like the kind of lazy argument you'd lob up just to give your fellow rich people an opportunity to bail you out in a hyper undemo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like that, unless your startup is hogging a scarce, universal human need.
> unless your startup is hogging a scarce, universal human need. Like talented engineers that could be put to other social use, just like those empty buildings?
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> A vacancy tax no more compels someone to rent their property than an income tax compels me to be unemployed. This analogy doesn’t make sense to me. Perhaps you can clarify.
People automatically equate taxation with fines and coercion, but they're separate concepts. The best example is the income tax. If we slap taxes on things we don't want people to do, then why do we literally tax work, a thing we want almost everyone to do? So taxes aren't fines or fees, and they don't force you to stop doing something you want to do or do something you don't want to. People still buy groceries despi…
Because we don't have a choice. You need resources to survive, you need to work to acquire resources.
The government wouldn't hesitate to tax breathing if they were confident we wouldn't hang them for it.
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Why are these properties vacant? I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent out the extra unit. I'd lie about tenancy, ask a friend to pretend to rent it, or pay this proposed tax rather than rent it out. I'd recommend the same to everyone. Tenants are a liability for landlords in SF. You cannot end a tenancy, not wi…
I mean, very few of them are; SF's vacancy rate is crazy low. If the dynamic you're describing exists, very few people are doing it. Places with even stronger renters rights regimes have higher vacancy rates. SF's problem is just supply.
I generally agree, SFs problem is 100% supply. But I think that ends up being caused by slow approval processes and highly restrictive tenants rights. Why would you ever subdivide your property in SF to add another dwelling unit? You can't give a tenant any amount of notice to end a tenancy. You can't ever merge those units back together. SFs property market is really crazy in this regard: older buildings with lots of units are often worth less than large single family houses. Properties with tenants sell for 25-50% less than vacant comparables.
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See, the casual way you say "you could evict" makes me think you don't appreciate that that's someone's home, maybe even a family, and you're uprooting them for personal convenience. I think a law preventing that would be a good one. Your argument sounds like, "if you let landlords evict as much as they like, they would rent their places out rather than treating them like pure investment vehicles." But how does that…
> the casual way you say "you could evict" makes me think you don't appreciate that that's someone's home... It's their home and your property. I'm not advocating anything crazy. As that hypothetical landlord your tenants deserve dignity, but it's your property and that has to confer certain rights beyond their tenancy. Otherwise, you don't really own it. You should be able to ask your tenants to leave with some amou…
I think a year or two is reasonable, but I generally don't like the mechanism of eviction. I live in the Netherlands and they do either fixed term or indefinite contracts here. Details are here [0], but the gist is that tenants get some stability while landlords can chance a vacancy period and raise rents while they're vacant and not rent controlled.
https://www.iamexpat.nl/housing/netherlands-rentals/rental-c...
"“The government cannot compel a property owner to rent his or her property to third parties without violating” the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said." A vacancy tax no more compels someone to rent their property than an income tax compels me to be unemployed. Feels like the kind of lazy argument you'd lob up just to give your fellow rich people an opportunity to bail you out in a hyper undemo…
"“The government cannot compel a property owner to rent his or her property to third parties without violating” the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said." A vacancy tax no more compels someone to rent their property than an income tax compels me to be unemployed. Feels like the kind of lazy argument you'd lob up just to give your fellow rich people an opportunity to bail you out in a hyper undemo…
Well, i can tell you the around 50% tax rate where i am has compelled me to be far less employed, so your argument on that front is wrong.
So many lazy landlords in this thread who don’t provide any benefit whatsoever to society.
"“The government cannot compel a property owner to rent his or her property to third parties without violating” the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said." A vacancy tax no more compels someone to rent their property than an income tax compels me to be unemployed. Feels like the kind of lazy argument you'd lob up just to give your fellow rich people an opportunity to bail you out in a hyper undemo…
Why are these properties vacant? I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent out the extra unit. I'd lie about tenancy, ask a friend to pretend to rent it, or pay this proposed tax rather than rent it out. I'd recommend the same to everyone. Tenants are a liability for landlords in SF. You cannot end a tenancy, not wi…