Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a symbolic order signalling his government will prioritize passing his promised middle-class tax cut, following the first in-person meeting of his cabinet on Parliament Hill Wednesday.
People should be allowed to purchase the rights to control land and buildings, it allows them to make more serious changes (construction, renos, landscaping) that they care about. It also allows for long term stability in terms of not getting evicted.
In my system for renters, the duties of a landlord are still taken care of by landlords, since it would still be perfectly legal to own a property and rent it out. It’s the same as now, except instead of the landlord making a profit off the month rent AND the property inflating in value over time, they can only make a reasonable profit off the monthly rent and even then only if they’re using the land efficiently. It’s not the concept of renting that’s broken the market, it’s the fact that instead of just being a value added service (taking care of the repairs, utilities, etc.) the current market has made it a long term investment. Force it back to just a value added service (like renting cars) and it will be fine.
And I’ve never heard of anybody getting evicted for non-payment of property taxes.
Governments force the sales of properties all the time over unpaid taxes.
Renting is inherently exploitative:
No it isn’t, that’s only the case when the market fails like a situation with a finite amount of land in a specific area. There’s nothing inherently exploitative about renting cars to people, or renting a garden tool you only use once a year, or renting a paddle board for a trip to the lake, or renting a hotel room while travelling.
Once you push the land efficiency aspect via taxes, the land limitation drops off significantly and we can go back to having apartment/home rentals just be something landlords do to earn a little bit of money for providing a service, rather than it doubling their investment every 5 years.
A lot of landlords perform zero or only the most minimal maintenance to their properties. I don’t know where this “value added” idea of yours coue come from. Unlike my wage, the rent goes up every year by a fixed percent. They spend as little as possible and over time the neglect builds up. So sad the way things fall apart for want of a little TLC. They will get paid more every year regardless. Then when it’s bad enough maybe apply for an AGI and make the tenants bear the cost of repairs aimed at fancying the place up without fixing any underlying issues, and/or renovict them to raise the rent even further. They are value suckers, not value adders. Both from the tenants, but also by allowing the condition of the building to deteriorate much faster than is required.
No it isn’t, that’s only the case when the market fails like a situation with a finite amount of land in a specific area. There’s nothing inherently exploitative about renting cars to people, or renting a garden tool you only use once a year, or renting a paddle board for a trip to the lake, or renting a hotel room while travelling.
Sorry I meant rental housing because that’s what we are talking about. How does your argument about property taxes apply to a paddle board?
Interesting how your examples emphasize transience and have the feeling of recreational. Housing isn’t something you need once in a while for funsies. You need it every day of your life, ideally without interruption. It’s hard to think of a comparable example to residential rental, because it’s such a key component to life itself. A better example for you would be access to running water or power. Maybe pharmaceuticals to treat chronic disease. You pay a fee to get access to a resource which is beyond your means to obtain as an individual. They shouldn’t be managed according to the whims of random rich people, they are social infrastructure.
go back to having apartment/home rentals just be something landlords do to earn a little bit of money for providing a service
When was that?
Am I understanding you properly that you think housing should be exclusively or primary provided by people who are doing it as a side hustle? Do you think having small artisanal landlords is somehow better than organizations run by professionals? I find it odd that you’ve clearly put a lot of thought into one aspect of the issue about taxes and such, but still sound kind of dismissive about the importance of housing to people, and also the skill involved in properly managing housing, to say nothing of the human beings residing inside. Which is not in high supply among the rinky dink small time landlords I’ve mostly lived under during my life.
But I don’t think big business is the solution; there has to be some sort of accountable body that manages housing. I still don’t see how your various tax schemes do anything to defer the profit motive, which is the driver of rent increases. It has always been that way.
At the end of the day, rent prices are driven by house prices. If rents become too high compared to owning, people just buy.
The current barrier is the upfront cost, but…
The property taxes I propose will drop the current value of homes through the floor. Some highly inefficient homes may actually have a zero or negative value, because they would cost too much in tax each month for anyone to want to buy. They would be scooped up by developers who can make them affordable by building enough units on that property in order to bring the tax per unit down to something people would pay.
Given that the house prices would drop so significantly, so would rent prices across the board.
There isn’t actually a lack of land anywhere in Canada, even our most populated city cores haven’t hit the densities that would prevent further growth.
There also isn’t actually a lack of housing, as I said elsewhere there are more bedrooms in Canada than there are people. We just need policies which incentive people to use them efficiently.
And the government controlling all rentals is an option, but do you really think they’re going to keep everything 100% repaired and up to date for everyone? This is going to be a pain point under both options, and I’d rather be able to take private landlord to court to get something fixed than try to take the government itself to court.
People should be allowed to purchase the rights to control land and buildings, it allows them to make more serious changes (construction, renos, landscaping) that they care about. It also allows for long term stability in terms of not getting evicted.
In my system for renters, the duties of a landlord are still taken care of by landlords, since it would still be perfectly legal to own a property and rent it out. It’s the same as now, except instead of the landlord making a profit off the month rent AND the property inflating in value over time, they can only make a reasonable profit off the monthly rent and even then only if they’re using the land efficiently. It’s not the concept of renting that’s broken the market, it’s the fact that instead of just being a value added service (taking care of the repairs, utilities, etc.) the current market has made it a long term investment. Force it back to just a value added service (like renting cars) and it will be fine.
Governments force the sales of properties all the time over unpaid taxes.
No it isn’t, that’s only the case when the market fails like a situation with a finite amount of land in a specific area. There’s nothing inherently exploitative about renting cars to people, or renting a garden tool you only use once a year, or renting a paddle board for a trip to the lake, or renting a hotel room while travelling.
Once you push the land efficiency aspect via taxes, the land limitation drops off significantly and we can go back to having apartment/home rentals just be something landlords do to earn a little bit of money for providing a service, rather than it doubling their investment every 5 years.
A lot of landlords perform zero or only the most minimal maintenance to their properties. I don’t know where this “value added” idea of yours coue come from. Unlike my wage, the rent goes up every year by a fixed percent. They spend as little as possible and over time the neglect builds up. So sad the way things fall apart for want of a little TLC. They will get paid more every year regardless. Then when it’s bad enough maybe apply for an AGI and make the tenants bear the cost of repairs aimed at fancying the place up without fixing any underlying issues, and/or renovict them to raise the rent even further. They are value suckers, not value adders. Both from the tenants, but also by allowing the condition of the building to deteriorate much faster than is required.
Sorry I meant rental housing because that’s what we are talking about. How does your argument about property taxes apply to a paddle board?
Interesting how your examples emphasize transience and have the feeling of recreational. Housing isn’t something you need once in a while for funsies. You need it every day of your life, ideally without interruption. It’s hard to think of a comparable example to residential rental, because it’s such a key component to life itself. A better example for you would be access to running water or power. Maybe pharmaceuticals to treat chronic disease. You pay a fee to get access to a resource which is beyond your means to obtain as an individual. They shouldn’t be managed according to the whims of random rich people, they are social infrastructure.
When was that?
Am I understanding you properly that you think housing should be exclusively or primary provided by people who are doing it as a side hustle? Do you think having small artisanal landlords is somehow better than organizations run by professionals? I find it odd that you’ve clearly put a lot of thought into one aspect of the issue about taxes and such, but still sound kind of dismissive about the importance of housing to people, and also the skill involved in properly managing housing, to say nothing of the human beings residing inside. Which is not in high supply among the rinky dink small time landlords I’ve mostly lived under during my life.
But I don’t think big business is the solution; there has to be some sort of accountable body that manages housing. I still don’t see how your various tax schemes do anything to defer the profit motive, which is the driver of rent increases. It has always been that way.
At the end of the day, rent prices are driven by house prices. If rents become too high compared to owning, people just buy.
The current barrier is the upfront cost, but…
The property taxes I propose will drop the current value of homes through the floor. Some highly inefficient homes may actually have a zero or negative value, because they would cost too much in tax each month for anyone to want to buy. They would be scooped up by developers who can make them affordable by building enough units on that property in order to bring the tax per unit down to something people would pay.
Given that the house prices would drop so significantly, so would rent prices across the board.
There isn’t actually a lack of land anywhere in Canada, even our most populated city cores haven’t hit the densities that would prevent further growth.
There also isn’t actually a lack of housing, as I said elsewhere there are more bedrooms in Canada than there are people. We just need policies which incentive people to use them efficiently.
And the government controlling all rentals is an option, but do you really think they’re going to keep everything 100% repaired and up to date for everyone? This is going to be a pain point under both options, and I’d rather be able to take private landlord to court to get something fixed than try to take the government itself to court.