Denver's Ghost Tax

[eddiememphis]

https://www.realtor.com/advice/rent/...ousing-crisis/

As nearly a third of Colorado households are severely housing cost burdened, nearly 27,000 rental units sit empty across Denver, according to some estimates. Now, housing advocates are saying it's time to tax those vacant homes, arguing that landlords who keep units off the market should help fund affordable housing.

...landlords are charged a fee if their rental units sit vacant for an extended period-often around six months or more. The goal is to push owners to either rent out those homes, sell them, or pay into city funds used to support affordable housing initiatives.

The logic is simple: Homes without people add fuel to a crisis where people are increasingly cost burdened by housing. By taxing long-term vacancies, cities hope to bring underused housing back into circulation or use the revenue to build more units for those priced out of the market.


I got a lot of problems with this one...

More vacancies drive prices down, not up. This is a form of price control, and those never work-they always backfire.

Vacant homes don't raise prices; they're just not part of the market. If anything, more vacancies mean lower prices, not higher.

Cheaper rent and more vacancies doesn't mean fewer people on the street, because homelessness isn't a pricing problem.

If you need $1,800 to cover the mortgage, a tax doesn't make that number smaller. It just adds another bill.

It's nobody's business whether a property is occupied or not. If I own it, I decide what happens to it.

Then there is the actual enforcement of it. How are they going to track this?
How do they know if a unit's truly vacant and for how long?
Will they track water and electric bills? Kick in doors?
Does the owner have to prove occupancy to some new "Vacancy Bureau"?
Is the property going to be confiscated if the tax is not paid?

This is the kind of poorly thought out nonsense that feels righteous but erodes freedom.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.- Tom Sowell

[BladesNBarrels]

The title says it all for me.
My vacant apartment is not vacant.
It is occupied by ghosts, so the politicians need to tax them.
Wait! Do not go that direction, or they will start taxing the dead.
Hopefully, this is non-starting suggestion to be filed with the trash pick-up.

[Clint45]

It's a complicated issue.

[buffalobo]

It's a complicated issue.

How so?



If you're unarmed, you are a victim

[theGinsue]

Vacant or not, the landlord is still paying annual property tax on that property. So long as that exists, and is paid, it's no ones business what you do with it.

My vacant apartment is not vacant.

It's not vacant, it's your Shangri-La oasis for extra-marital affairs (just inform your wife ahead of time that this is the argument you'll use or you'll have other issues to content with).



I've known a few landlords through the last few years and what I've been told is that there is an increasing number of renters who cause so much damage to rental property that it's cheaper to leave the property vacant than to fix it up between each renter. What I saw with my own eyes on a friends rental home is it is doubly worse when the renters are government subsidized. The home was trashed and any appliance that could be stole, was stolen.

Then too is the double-edged sword of leaving a property vacant. We've all heard the horror stories of squatters coming into vacant homes, sometimes even "occupied" homes of those who've been out of town for a couple of days. In CO, getting them out is near impossible. What CSPD told me a year ago, to establish official residence someplace, all you have to do is list the address someplace as simple as a King Soopers loyalty card application as your residence - never even stepping into the residence.



As to the Denver "Ghost Tax", if a bureaucrat can tax something, they will.

[Firehaus]

I've known a few landlords through the last few years and what I've been told is that there is an increasing number of renters who cause so much damage to rental property that it's cheaper to leave the property vacant than to fix it up between each renter. What I saw with my own eyes on a friends rental home is it is doubly worse when the renters are government subsidized. The home was trashed and any appliance that could be stole, was stolen.

Then too is the double-edged sword of leaving a property vacant. We've all heard the horror stories of squatters coming into vacant homes, sometimes even "occupied" homes of those who've been out of town for a couple of days. In CO, getting them out is near impossible. What CSPD told me a year ago, to establish official residence someplace, all you have to do is list the address someplace as simple as a King Soopers loyalty card application as your residence - never even stepping into the residence.



As to the Denver "Ghost Tax", if a bureaucrat can tax something, they will.

Leaving it empty is worse. Meth remediation is not cheap and sometimes a stolen stove is better than this.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Eric P]

Rent the vacant properties to the city. Make the city sign a damage policy to restore the property after thier tenants vacate.

Reduce property tax by the difference in market rate vs low income rate to make the owner whole.

[eddiememphis]

Rent the vacant properties to the city. Make the city sign a damage policy to restore the property after thier tenants vacate.

Reduce property tax by the difference in market rate vs low income rate to make the owner whole.

But that would cut the grifters, I mean 'non-profits', out of the loop.

It also would do nothing to demonize and penalize property owners.