General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why not outlaw landlordism? [View all]True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)If you include tax credits and other mitigations so that people are not penalized for buying before the change, then people who own today would simply buy bigger houses (and/or more of them) under the lower prices. Their income is the same, so the value of the property they can afford is actually constant - meaning no net reduction in property tax revenues.
Don't get me wrong, the money would move around geographically - that's inevitable, and happens naturally anyway. Opposite trends like urban blight or gentrification happen. But the newly-created low-income homeowners would have more disposable income because they're not being milked by landlords, allowing them to spend more and stabilize the value of their new communities, while prior owners would move up the economic ladder to better locations.
By and large that sounds like a win-win. Certainly more than the current trajectory of wealth in this country.