The Stop Wall Street Landlords Act has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Ro Khanna. The bill would raise taxes on the purchase of single family homes by private equity and corporations.
The Stop Wall Street Landlords Act has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Ro Khanna. The bill would raise taxes on the purchase of single family homes by private equity and corporations.
Khanna introduced a bill on Tuesday going after private equity investors who have been buying up homes as speculative investments.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21188435
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They shouldn't even be able to buy single family homes. They're buying houses all over the world raising house prices. They belong in the trash with Airbnb.
There are a few, limited, cases where they should be able to. For example, if they have operations in an area that has frequent medium term employees coming in and out. It's valid for them to say we will offer you a house for the time you are here. But I would generally agree there is no reason for an investment company to be investing in single-family homes. It's good for the investment company, bad for society.
In that situation they could buy a condo, for example.
Why do we force them to do that? How does that help? The condo could be just as easily bought by a single family. The only point I am making is that there are a few legitimate situations where a corporation would want to buy property and we should let them. Houses should be for people to live in. Not for giant corporations to invest in.
Then they cannot rent it... They could offset with wages. This prevents abuse to rent to anyone else.
How about, corporations can own single-family homes, but can only provide them for use by their employees or contractors, not rent them out on the open market and if they sit vacant for more than a couple of months there is some huge tax or fine?
I think there are a significant number of different ways that a large corporation could provide housing for medium-term employees besides purchasing single family homes. Purchasing small apartment buildings, like a fourplex, or purchasing an empty lot and putting manufactured homes on it creating more housing instead of taking the starter homes from normal families.