With over 600k homeless Americans, couch surfing and sleeping outside tonight, this is important to understand - eviltoast
  • whithom@discuss.online
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    5 days ago

    In my building, half the units are just sitting here empty. Guess what country the owner is from?

    • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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      5 days ago

      Doesn’t really matter what country the owner is from. What matters is that the country that contains the houses allows houses to be bought and sold purely for investment. Focusing on who is buying and selling them is barking up the wrong tree. If it wasn’t them it would be someone else, because it’s the system that’s the problem. Go be racist somewhere else. Or just don’t be racist at all.

      • whithom@discuss.online
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        5 days ago

        You’re half right. It shouldn’t be allowed to happen at all. Personally I think, one person, one house—that’s it. Corporations can’t own SFH. Taxed on empty units, taxed on high rates.

        • bountygiver [any]@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          yup tax on empty units in general would help a lot including rent prices, if you want to not pay the extra tax, better lower your rent to a point people can afford. So the tax needs to be high enough for this decision to be made.

        • iii@mander.xyz
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          5 days ago

          Personally I think, one person, one house

          What’s a family to do?

          • comfy@lemmy.ml
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            5 days ago

            I’m guessing they mean maximum one person one house, so a person can’t own two houses but many people can choose to live in one house.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      5 days ago

      i’m happy to see the empty apartments where i live; it means that it helps drive down the cost of rent and it’s working, somewhat.

      • whithom@discuss.online
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        5 days ago

        I’m guessing they’re empty because they can’t be rented, and not because they aren’t for rent.

        • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          it’s partially because there’s no one to rent it. the locals tell me that it’s trending towards the same patterns that i’ve experienced in other cities; but it still affordable compared to the cities i’ve lived in texas, new jersey and georgia and despite it being the 3rd largest city in the country and COMPLETELY outclassing those other cities in terms of quality of life and public services. (for now).