Greed is exactly the right word. There is a flat unwillingness to acknowledge or reason from the fact by so many homeowners that they are sitting on giant, completely unearned windfalls. There’s a huge sense of entitlement around these inflated prices.
It is an unearned windfall, but people deserve to keep their homes. It bears noting that the issue is caused by property investors, not homeowners. How about we go for the individuals that own more than 3 properties and let grandma keep what she earned?
She may have earned the house to some degree (the article outlines a number of government subsidies which make this doubtful), but she definitely didn’t earn the land value increase.
I’m reminded of this quote:
> Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.
Yup. I think a 90% tax on real estate capital gains would be the solution. That would also disincentivize housing speculators et al.
In addition, a 90% tax on real estate income (rental income minus costs like mortgage, interest, maintenance, property taxes, etc) would also disincentivize people who buy properties just to rent them out.
Grandma, living in the same house she’s lived in since 1972, collecting a fixed income pension cheque once a month, is not what I’d describe as a “rich person.”
Look instead to the people who own golf courses, sports stadiums, super yachts, private jets and the like.
> Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing.
They are risking. Land value can go up or it can go down. It just has been mostly going up (in real terms) in the past decades, but it's far from certainty. You can lose money by investing in real estate, just like in everything else.
This isn't true. Homeowners vote in favour of policies that benefit landlords as well. It will look like the landlord is conspiring against tenants but landlords hardly have any political representation compared to tenants.
