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How private equity is changing housing

(www.theatlantic.com)
115 points harambae | 3 comments | 09 Dec 25 17:26 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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stock_toaster ◴[09 Dec 25 18:28 UTC] No.46208576[source]▶
Wild idea... Maybe tax wealth instead of income?

Tax break on single home ownership, but significantly increased tax on multi-home-ownership?

It would be interesting to see comparisons between PE ownership in markets with property tax vs markets without.

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gjsman-1000 ◴[09 Dec 25 18:35 UTC] No.46208673[source]▶
Wealth taxes don't work because wealth gets extremely fuzzy.

For example, unsold stock that I bought 15 years ago; and then got a loan against. I'm wealthy... kinda? But I didn't sell the stock; I have unrealized gains, and you shouldn't tax me beyond income tax on borrowed money? Okay, tax me on my unrealized gains then - but then 2008 repeats itself, stock goes down 40%, do I get a refund? Of course not, I only pay when stock goes up and never down, which is not exactly a fair incentive.

Now imagine artwork I bought 15 years ago from Banksy. Or imagine my video game collection I bought on eBay that contains some rare titles. Or what about my wine collection? Now imagine I'm Elon Musk, on paper worth $400B, but if I sold even 20% of my stock, that paper valuation would be shredded from an excess of liquidity driving the share price down, so you can't tax me on what is physically impossible to realize.

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UncleMeat ◴[09 Dec 25 19:03 UTC] No.46209096[source]▶
> Okay, tax me on my unrealized gains then - but then 2008 repeats itself, stock goes down 40%, do I get a refund? Of course not, I only pay when stock goes up and never down, which is not exactly a fair incentive.

We already do this for property taxes.

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quesera ◴[09 Dec 25 20:19 UTC] No.46210077[source]▶
That's a very strange way of looking at property taxes.
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UncleMeat ◴[09 Dec 25 20:46 UTC] No.46210410[source]▶
I do not see the difference between property taxes on my home and property taxes on my stock portfolio. What makes wealth taxes bad?
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1. orangecat ◴[09 Dec 25 21:56 UTC] No.46211282[source]▶
Property taxes are use taxes. You're paying for the right to occupy an inherently limited resource, and for necessary services and infrastructure. It's not a wealth tax because it doesn't matter how much equity you have; it's the same whether you fully paid in cash or have an interest-only mortgage. It's also not a capital gains tax because the purchase price doesn't matter.
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2. UncleMeat ◴[09 Dec 25 22:42 UTC] No.46211749[source]▶
The total ownership of all public companies is also a limited resource.

Whether I have 0% equity or 100% equity in my home I still own it. The only question is how much I owe to the bank. "Oh I bought that with leverage" shouldn't change things for home ownership and it should change things for a wealth tax on stock ownership.

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3. dragonwriter ◴[09 Dec 25 22:47 UTC] No.46211797[source]▶
Then it’s an asset/property tax, not a wealth tax, because debt doesn't change the asset (even if it is secured by the asset), but it does change wealth.