The U.S. Treasury Department will soon propose a rule that would effectively end anonymous luxury-home purchases, closing a loophole that the agency says allows corrupt oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals to hide ill-gotten gains.
How about they just make it illegal for corporations to own houses?
Ding ding ding!
But think of the corporations! How will they continue to bleed the people dry with rent and artificially expensive homes??
Renting is the right choice for some people. Corporations have to obey stronger laws than mom and pops and are in my experience more likely to keep the houses updated.
Not when they are essentially a cabal :/ https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent
This is completely untrue.
The Mom and Pop owners have less resources to handle if you suddenly break your lease and leave due to crumbing conditions so it’s in their best interest to keep their properties updated.
Corporations often will ignore your complaints, and then just absorb the costs for a couple months until they can move in someone else into the same broken property. Corporations do not care when it comes to their properties, while individual owners do care because there are actual people behind them.
Also, regardless if “renting is the right choice for some people”, the housing shortage is due to corporations buying up single family homes with the express purpose of renting them, which pushes potential owners out of the market entirely.
Also too, mom and pop landlords often hold property as a means of retirement savings, so that when they go to cash out and finally retire, the house is worth something as opposed to a neglected pile. Obviously this isn’t true across all property owners that rent out, but it isn’t uncommon.
Just a single data point but as soon as a corporation bought my apartment complex they “attempted” to illegally increase my rent through hidden fee increases. They also “accidentally” sent me the wrong leases with the rents increased multiple times.
If I need to sue a corporation for something like this, it’s going to be a lot of time and effort for me but nothing for them so they can essentially get away with the illegality. Mom and pops it’s a lot of time and effort for both of us so it’s in both of our best interests to do things by the book.
Yes, renting is absolutely the right choice for some people. I completely agree. That is why I never said apartments shouldn’t exist or that people couldn’t own multiple homes to rent out. However, I think people who own multiple homes should be taxed higher on them.
Housing should not be a retirement vehicle. It should be a basic human right.
Also, I don’t think it’s true that corporations have to obey stronger laws than mom and pops. I’m pretty sure rental laws are just rental laws, and corporations just have lawyers who make sure they are following all applicable laws. I could be wrong, though.
This would be the biggest game changer for our country. Let corporations own all the apartments they want but keep them out of single family housing. There’s no reason for corporations to hoard and sit on housing, letting them sit empty and raising the prices of the occupied ones. Single family Housing should not be an investment opportunity for corporations.
Let’s bring down housing prices, and people will have a hell of a lot more money to spend on other things to keep our economy moving.
Then after that let’s do Healthcare and Education.
Why stop at single family housing?
I live in a house that was sold at below market rates, under the condition that I will also sell to the next homeowner at a below market rate, there is a fixed equity gain each year to cover general home owner costs. I own the house, the city owns the land the house is on, HOA covers outside upkeep like roofing, window cleaning and driveway maintenance. This is known as a Community Land Trust.
There is no reason this method of housing can’t also be applied to folks that live in an apartment. Fuck corporations they shouldn’t own anything.
There’s no reason corporations should be involved in housing period. Housing is a human right and we should be treating it that way
Just tax any home other than your primary residence at 100% of the assessed fair market value per year. Hell, make it 100000%. This includes apartments, condos, townhomes, mobile homes. It would solve a lot of problems real quick. Some “real estate moguls” might have to find a real job for once in their life but it will be good for them. I hear they like to hustle.
