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.

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.

    • 2d@kbin.social
      34·
      2 years ago

      Ding ding ding!

      But think of the corporations! How will they continue to bleed the people dry with rent and artificially expensive homes??

    • J12@lemmy.world
      25·
      2 years ago

      This would be the biggest game changer for our country. Let corporations own all the apartments they want but keep them out of single family housing. There’s no reason for corporations to hoard and sit on housing, letting them sit empty and raising the prices of the occupied ones. Single family Housing should not be an investment opportunity for corporations.

      Let’s bring down housing prices, and people will have a hell of a lot more money to spend on other things to keep our economy moving.

      Then after that let’s do Healthcare and Education.

      • Sunforged@lemmy.world
        9·
        2 years ago

        Why stop at single family housing?

        I live in a house that was sold at below market rates, under the condition that I will also sell to the next homeowner at a below market rate, there is a fixed equity gain each year to cover general home owner costs. I own the house, the city owns the land the house is on, HOA covers outside upkeep like roofing, window cleaning and driveway maintenance. This is known as a Community Land Trust.

        There is no reason this method of housing can’t also be applied to folks that live in an apartment. Fuck corporations they shouldn’t own anything.

    • bluGill@kbin.social
      6·
      2 years ago

      Renting is the right choice for some people. Corporations have to obey stronger laws than mom and pops and are in my experience more likely to keep the houses updated.

      • kaitco@lemmy.world
        18·
        2 years ago

        This is completely untrue.

        The Mom and Pop owners have less resources to handle if you suddenly break your lease and leave due to crumbing conditions so it’s in their best interest to keep their properties updated.

        Corporations often will ignore your complaints, and then just absorb the costs for a couple months until they can move in someone else into the same broken property. Corporations do not care when it comes to their properties, while individual owners do care because there are actual people behind them.

        Also, regardless if “renting is the right choice for some people”, the housing shortage is due to corporations buying up single family homes with the express purpose of renting them, which pushes potential owners out of the market entirely.

      • Sl00k@programming.dev
        6·
        2 years ago

        Just a single data point but as soon as a corporation bought my apartment complex they “attempted” to illegally increase my rent through hidden fee increases. They also “accidentally” sent me the wrong leases with the rents increased multiple times.

        If I need to sue a corporation for something like this, it’s going to be a lot of time and effort for me but nothing for them so they can essentially get away with the illegality. Mom and pops it’s a lot of time and effort for both of us so it’s in both of our best interests to do things by the book.

      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 years ago

        Yes, renting is absolutely the right choice for some people. I completely agree. That is why I never said apartments shouldn’t exist or that people couldn’t own multiple homes to rent out. However, I think people who own multiple homes should be taxed higher on them.

        Housing should not be a retirement vehicle. It should be a basic human right.

        Also, I don’t think it’s true that corporations have to obey stronger laws than mom and pops. I’m pretty sure rental laws are just rental laws, and corporations just have lawyers who make sure they are following all applicable laws. I could be wrong, though.

        • bluGill@kbin.social
          1·
          2 years ago

          Taxes just come out of higher rent and push people who otherwise should rent to buying a house that isn’t right foe them

    • UFO@programming.dev
      4·
      2 years ago

      Always amazed how blatant this is and yet the GOP only screams for Hunter Biden dick pics.

  • Mystech@lemmy.world
    13·
    2 years ago

    Uh-oh, looks like someone is going to have to buy Clarence Thomas another RV to get out of this one!

  • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
    1·
    2 years ago

    This will have much less of an effect on housing prices than people wish. The core problem there is lack of supply, not a handful of foreign oligarchs.

    • xantoxis@lemmy.world
      10·
      2 years ago

      Foreign oligarchs affect supply, and I don’t think we have any idea how much. Corporate owners are probably a bigger chokepoint on supply, but domestic wealthholders are probably a big player as well. We need a variety of rules in place; enforcement of any of them will increase supply, but that mostly benefits whoever’s left in the list above. If we crack down on the biggest supply problem, the next biggest one will buy up the excess.

      If we actually want private homeowners to take precedence, we have to make it extremely difficult for anyone to own multiple homes, corporation or not, wealthy or not, foreign or not.

      To your point, this rule, whether it becomes an enforceable regulation or not, isn’t even targeted at increasing supply. It’s targeted at preventing money laundering.

      • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
        3·
        2 years ago

        To your point, this rule, whether it becomes an enforceable regulation or not, isn’t even targeted at increasing supply. It’s targeted at preventing money laundering.

        Oh I know; that was aimed more at the people talking about corporations owning housing, as if that’s particularly relevant. I’m quite skeptical that the corporate boogeyman is really a meaningful target when it comes to housing costs though. We’ve been drastically underbuilding for decades now - with quite a lot of that directly coming from extremely onerous zoning laws. The sheer fact of the matter is that in most American cities (where people actually want to live - empty shacks in rural Nebraska are not particularly helpful here), there are far more people who want to live there than available housing, and the inevitable result of this is that the wealthiest people are those who get to live in them. This will be the case regardless of whether the housing is owned by a corporation or a mom and pop. The fundamental problem is lack of supply; anything that doesn’t address that will not meaningful reduce housing prices and is at best a band-aid.