Genuine Question, why can't we just charge a federal property tax 3-4x local property taxes for individuals who own >1 property (which would likely be distributed back to the locality, specifics not important), apply the same rules we do for pass-through taxation to mitigate loopholes, and automatically charge this elevated rate for properties owned by non-natural persons? I think this would just price in the externalities of corporate versus natural person living in a property for a locality.

Or maybe it's a tiered system. W/e.

On a related note, does anyone have anecdotal stories about the efficacy of Georgist tax policies?

This is a difficult conversation to have, and not unintentionally so. I hope I come across as respectful and unpatronizing as possible (and apologize since I probably don't.)

While we have intelligent people discussing pie-in-the-sky solutions, barely-related tangential issues, and even misdirected injection attacks, the causes of the housing crisis are not only well-known to (honest) economists [1], but can be verified by looking at the market pre- and post-1970.

It's hard enough to tune in to the correct analysis in the cacophony. When once in a blue moon it comes from the bully pulpit [2], it still gets shot down in a sea of misdirection.

[1] https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/0...

[2] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/obama-takes-on-zoning...

Another MIT course that I absolutely love (went through it twice) is "Environmental Technologies in Buildings" [1]. It covers a very wide breadth of topics, like sun radiation, photo-voltaics, wind, insulation, human perception of heat and lighting, etc. Just all around fascinating. Professor Reinhart is a pleasure to learn from. There's also and Edx course with lecture recordings for it [2].

[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/11-350-sustainable-real-estate-s...

[2] https://www.edx.org/learn/sustainable-development/massachuse...

The course videos have been uploaded to YT in the past hours:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63Np7g0Xtk9...

We need to stop treating real restate--especially residential real estate--as a mechanism for creating wealth.

there are enough homeowners that they vote for politicians and policies that will increase the value of their "investments". All this does is simply steal money from the next generation. Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the young and poor and the old and wealthy.

There is a distinction here to be made between "private property" (what we have now) and "personal property", which would be a far more ideal outcome.

Personal property simply means that you're allowed to own your own home. You're either not allowed to buy up huge tracts of homes to restrict supply and jack up prices or, if you do, you're taxed punitively for it.

Landlords. We need to get rid of landlords. 50+ years ago, the UK came close to this with a surprisingly simple solution [1].

This alone isn't sufficient but it's an important part. The other big part is to have a supply of social housing [2] so the private sector simply can't manipulate hte market.

Unfortunately, when Americans in particular hear a term like "social housing" they lose their minds and they immediately go to ghettoes or projects. Don't think that. Think Vienna [3][4].

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-...

[2]: https://www.allianceforhousingjustice.org/us-social-housing-...

[3]: https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-archit...

[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc...

This is one of the issues behind the North American housing crisis (there’s no “middle” housing):

https://missingmiddlehousing.com

Maybe what we need is improvment to hyper-adobe which is being touted as a manual 3D Printer(humans being the processor). The wasp 3d printer looks promising. I wonder if we can simplify it to be manual by maybe stradling the first foot high layer. Alternatively, we could design modern modular wall sectkions akin to SIPs, ive seen some creative pvc sheets out of china lately.

Singapore cracked the housing problem for citizen but the rest of the world doesn’t like the policy, I can imagine most of the people commenting here won’t either.

Just read the comments, “housing provider” you can’t even admit your a landlord, it is amusing to read comment like these, very interesting to see how NIMBYs think.

My radical solution (in addition to build build build).

Tax something like $1,000 per day that a unit is unoccupied (aka not in residential lease or commercial with x number of employees assigned there).

Buy and hold empty is not sustainable. Also Airbnb can go to hell.

If we penalize home buyers for investing in real estate, then we will have a housing problem.

Those who own real estate and rent it out should be motivated to create more housing. They should get tax breaks. Not penalized with more taxes.

Thats the only sustainable way.

Mh, I do not see the whole course but... The sustainable real estate is one who can evolve because the best energetic performances of today will be very bad performances tomorrow and the "ideal design" for today will be a very bad one tomorrow. So essentially only small buildings are sustainable because they can be made in an "industrial-like" manner (meaning the same design can fit pretty any needs with just minor changes) and changing them is sufficiently cheap.

Beware that in the past a condo was cheaper than a home per apartment because there was only one roof, a bit less in equipment and so on. BUT that's in the past where there was not much about anti-seismic design, fire safety, HVAC and so on. Today a modern "green" condo cost more in raw materials than equivalent single family homes PLUS the condo can't evolve. A tower? Even FAR worse. Just the mere structure need more steel than homes, just the elevators alone cost more. Similarly modern rails cost MORE than people moving with personal cars. The narrative of course it's the opposite because finance capitalism need big things and profit from rent and services in such setups, but the narrative and the reality are really different.

Today the sustainable real estate economy is those of spread single-family homes mixed with small commercial buildings (sheds, essentially) to reduce significantly the amount of commuting residents needs just to buy some groceries, modern small buildings built locally with mass produced components produced around the territory in most cases in not so big setups simply because there are standards like home appliances sizes or Chinese battery tools connectors (the same battery works essentially any tool from any vendor) or cars (yes, most component of Chinese cars are the same even if cars came from various brands). Essentially today sustainable real estate is a FLOSS/open hardware one spread/personal and built around the world without megafactories for most of the component (we still need some big scale for steel, for some electronics, mining etc, but not much more). This real estate of course is VERY opposed by any means by large actors who know well this model is for individual ownership, SMEs not for them.

Singapore has a very sustainable housing plan. Affordable homes are owned by the govt and let out on 99 year lease. Problem solved.

Honestly I wouldn't trust any comments about Sustainable Real Estate from a university on the east coast as a west coaster. So many empty houses there.