Population and Housing

[tomh009]

Somebody who has property and builds on it housing or other amenities needed by the community is giving value to the community. Somebody who is just sitting on a property and watching the value rise through no work of their own but expects to profit through a later sale is a leech and a parasite on the community.

I suppose if we believe that so much existing housing is sitting empty that flushing speculators out of the market and bringing it into use would give a significant increase in effective housing supply, then maybe this sort of tinkering with pricing rules could have an impact. I’m skeptical of this however: I’m pretty sure the only way out is to do things which cause more housing to be built.

I think he's referring to empty land, not vacant housing.

I have previously proposed that the cities should eliminate the property tax discount for vacant land. If anything, it should be at a higher rate than land that contains usable buildings. The property tax discount is an incentive to NOT build on the land.