Comment by peab
Yeah, we definitely still need homes to be available for rent.
If you move a lot, or want to be able to move easily and explore different cities or even neighborhoods within a city, renting is way easier than if you'd have to go through the hassle of buying.
What sucks is when private companies start owning too many houses and they have unfair advantages over regular folks. For example, they have teams of lawyers.
I was suggesting that as a way to prevent purchasing homes to resell for more money. I actually meant it as a tax on the profits from a sale of a house.
I completely agree, we need homes for rent at reasonable rates.
But I forgot that a lot of the homes that were purchased for investing were purchased to rent out. A 75% tax on the profits from sale wouldn’t help. If it’s 75% on all profits, including rental income, it’ll destroy the rental market.
I can’t think of a decent answer off the top of my head. My suggestion was glib, but it was meant for the pretty easy case of just flipping.
Trying to control how many houses are purchased versus rented, and how you determine a reasonable rent or prevent that from being abused, is a lot harder.