I think the main thing we need to do is make a federal property tax for any unused house or rental. Something that billionaires can afford, but only for their personal homes - and something that will basically force all landlords to sell immediately. Every actual real property will be forced onto the market in seconds and everyone will be able to buy a house that needs one for pennies on the dollar. It will be amazing. Let's start with 1000% per hour.
It amounts to a mass seizure and redistribution, except those who were seized from still have to pay back what they borrowed, so it's even worse!
Not possible, because if its a tax an unused homes or rentals, what it would force people to do is either:
(1) make it qualify as “used”, or,
(2) destroy the residential structure on the land to preserve the value of the underlying land, which would no longer have an unused home or rental on it.
(Of course, you’ll never get the Constitutional amendment needed to carve out a new exception to both the prohibition on unapportioned direct taxes and the takings clause of the 5th Amendment that you’d need for that, so its moot anyway.)
developers mass-producing cheap, inhumane housing, set on tiny parcels designed to maximize developer profit MEETS most potential buyers/renters have zero interest in that crap
?
I live alone in my house. It was built in the late 1940s. This house likely housed couples with children, 3-5 people, instead of the 1 it holds today.
Coupling up would reduce housing demand, and should in turn lower prices as availability increases.
I get the population will still grow, and we will likely still need some amount of housing growth over time, but we don't need nearly as much as we think we do.
We also don't need to avoid the middle of the country. The population has been moving to the coasts, while the Midwest has lost a ton of people since the manufacturing moved elsewhere. With a lot of companies, there is no reason they can't be in the midwest where there are a lot more affordable homes, and a lot of space. We should be looking to draw people from these HCOL areas to help bring back these cities. It seems like a win-win situation.
panny•1h ago
Zoning in Japan is at the national level. Japanese houses are WAY cheaper than American ones, while being of better quality at the same time.
codingdave•1h ago
And FWIW, homes in the USA have a massive variety of quality. Generalizations about such things are going to be flawed.
ggm•1h ago
Firstly, a significant number of houses are one family lifetime. People clearfell and rebuild routinely. The marginal value of a home is different when it's lifetime is constrained. Not all houses by any stretch, but its far more common.
Secondly Japan's population is shrinking. It's further along a pathway the developed economies share absent immigration. Thus, there is far more housing stock to head of population.
There is a third reason and it is perhaps more relevant: Japan's zoning laws are bizarre. You can put a house up next to a tire recycling plant, and have a Zen temple across the road and a sofa factory operating out of your front verandah. Nobody seems to care. California take note.