440
submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The U.S. Treasury Department will soon propose a rule that would effectively end anonymous luxury-home purchases, closing a loophole that the agency says allows corrupt oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals to hide ill-gotten gains.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

And are those vacant houses in places where people want to live?

In NYC, for example, the vacancy rate is a bit above 2%. Vacant houses in Oklahoma have zero relevance to homeless people in NYC. It also has to be considered that a lot of vacant residences are only temporary; either caught up in legal issues or briefly empty while the owners find tenants. But again, geography is critically relevant here. Vacant properties only help if they're in places where people actually want to live and where jobs are available. It doesn't matter how cheap a shack in Nebraska is if there's no job around beyond farming.

[-] jayrhacker@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago
[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

Only a third of those are in the 'other vacant' category that represents housing that's not being used for any purpose. The other two-thirds are currently for rent or sale, have completed that transaction and are awaiting actual occupation, or are seasonally used.

I wouldn't be opposed to a tax on season homeownership, but that's only 10,000 units a city of 800,000.

The real question to ask is why the hell is it literally illegal to build anything other than a single-family home in 38% percent of the city's land, nearly two-thirds of land zoned for residential purpose?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-map-single-family-homes-17699820.php

Sure, snapping your fingers and making those ~30,000 units come on to the market would have a small effect, but it pales in comparison to how much supply could be added if such a huge chunk of the land wasn't legally mandated to be single-family homes.

[-] agitatedpotato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Providence, Pheonix, OKC, Memphis, St Louis, Detroit, Houston and Cleveland are all in the top 20 by percentage of vacant houses and NYC is #22. This problem is not limted to small rural areas at all. The vacancies are spread across the whole of the country.

https://anytimeestimate.com/research/most-vacant-cities-2022/

this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
440 points (99.5% liked)

News

36221 readers
366 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS