Washington Needs to Tax Empty Homes. and Its Cities Should, Too

https://www.thestranger.com/guest-editorial/2022/10/10/78591327/washington-needs-to-tax-empty-homes

by ingve • 4 years ago

21 23 4 years ago

Permits to build, permits to remodel, taxes for simply existing year-over-year, taxes for having too few people living in the house... is there a limit to how far government will go to control what people can and cannot do with their own property?

easytiger4• 4 years ago

It's an easy target from a moral point of view in the absence of principle.

And look. More regulation = more cost = false scarcity. People never learn.

easytiger4• 4 years ago

i note this comment was +5 before the post got upvoted. HELLO BLOB

ZoomerCretin3• 4 years ago

No, unless you think an empty lot in downtown Manhattan should continue to go unused forever. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that land is used effectively.

easytiger4• 4 years ago

Why is that lot unused?

MontyCarloHall3• 4 years ago

Permits to build, permits to remodel

It won't be your property forever, and future tenants have a right to live in a place that was constructed safely. I'd rather not find out that the wiring of the house I bought was installed by an unlicensed amateur when it burns down the house. That house fire could also spread to your neighbors, so it's not just your property that's at stake.

I agree that some permitting requirements can get out of hand; for example, some jurisdictions require a permit for repairs as simple as replacing a kitchen tap. But I'd rather the law be too stringent in this regard than too lenient, and it’s easy enough to flout the law for simple things like a kitchen tap.

RichardCNormos2• 4 years ago

This emotional rationale is what enabled the Boomer generation's near-complete regulatory capture of the real estate market.

stjohnswarts3• 4 years ago

You live in a society and not just a capitalist dystopia.

klyrs2• 4 years ago

is there a limit to how far government will go to control what people can and cannot do with their own property?

The third amendment?

MontyCarloHall3• 4 years ago

multinational firms that take possession of their former houses often let them sit empty to accrue value

Citation needed. Unless the house is a total dump, why would said firms pass up on the revenue from renting the place out?

in 2021, [Seattle] had 33,100 vacant homes

How many of these houses were vacant for legitimate reasons: in between owners/rental tenants, or under renovation?

MattGrommes• 4 years ago

Here's an article on a similar topic in NYC. https://archive.ph/xKVMG

It doesn't go into a ton of detail but it shows it's very common. One reason is that there's a cost to renting a place out with maintenance and dealing with tenants. If you just let the place sit, it's an investment like the many paintings rich people own that they never see, it's just a place to park money for later.

MontyCarloHall3• 4 years ago

That article specifically focuses on ultra-luxury properties (i.e. selling for >$10M). It is not generally true of most NYC apartments.

The main example in the article,

the East Side bounded by Fifth and Park Avenues and East 49th and 70th Streets

is literally the most expensive zip code in the US: https://www.nynesting.com/news/america-s-most-expensive-zip-...

Perhaps there is merit in taxing vacant $10M condo investment pieces, but it wouldn’t do anything to address housing shortages.

stjohnswarts3• 4 years ago

In today's market the only reason they would be empty is because they are charging exorbitant rent compared to surrounding houses.

klyrs2• 4 years ago

Unless the house is a total dump, why would said firms pass up on the revenue from renting the place out?

Property management companies are colluding to jack the prices up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33224502

NickC25• 4 years ago

Other cities not in Washington should try this, too. Vacant or unused apartments should be taxed too.

I live in Miami. My building is 55-60% occupied at best during peak season (October/November through March). The building is over 5 years old yet 10-20% of units are literally unfinished, and another 10-20% are used so infrequently (less than 8-10 weeks a year)......yet we have a ton of homelessness and it seems developers are too poor to build anything but "ultra-luxury" (their words) developments.

Something doesn't add up.

ZoomerCretin3• 4 years ago

The thing that doesn't add up is the onerous zoning restrictions. When you're limited in how many units you can build, and that total is lower than the demand for the highest-margin "luxury" housing, guess what gets built?

You can have exclusionary low-density zoning and homelessness, or you can have abundant affordable housing but residential areas are a mix of building types (SFH, MFH).

seanmcdirmid3• 4 years ago

Maybe just crank up property taxes to put more pressure on productive use of the property? Then take the extra property tax to subsidize in-need housing, win win?

ZoomerCretin3• 4 years ago

"Tax empty homes to provide more units."

How about just reform land use and take away the NIMBY/city-level veto over denser forms of housing? This is a far larger and far lower-hanging fruit than trying to tax 2-3% of units onto the market. After the housing construction industry collapsed after 2007-2008, we underbuilt several million housing units and are now suffering the results of low vacancy rates. You can't redistribute your way out of a shortage, but you can build your way out of one.

seanmcdirmid3• 4 years ago

After the housing construction industry collapsed after 2007-2008, we underbuilt several million housing units and are now suffering the results of low vacancy rates.

What does that have to do with NIMBY/city-level veto over denser forms of housing? I don't see how your argument flows from the 1st sentence to the 2nd and then the third.

stjohnswarts3• 4 years ago

contractors can afford to build more apartments/units if NIMBYs and zoning power (to prevent dense housing) are reduced. They can sell more units per square meter of land.

badinsie• 4 years ago

32 vacant homes for every one homeless person in the US. and no, the vacant homes are not only in Detroit or other similar run down places.

easytiger4• 4 years ago

surely that indicates how few homeless people there are.

Washington Needs to Tax Empty Homes. and Its Cities Should, Too

Related Stories