Why Don't Vacant Home Taxes Work?

[@fredbergotte]

Always enjoy these discussions.

[@lambertenserink9724]

Municipalities can use property assessors to supplement the vacant data. MPAC in Ontario constantly visits properties and finds them vacant often for multiple years after construction finishes.

[@rzmk8620]

Stop letting folks using HELOC to use for purchasing rental property, this is one of the steps that would bring housing price down. Don’t let homeowners take out LOC from the house they purchased unless 5 years completed.

[@DanielKivariTeacher]

I would like to see a ban on corporate or LLC owned R1-3 and condo real estate. I would also like to see progressive property taxes based on the total property ownership of individuals in the province. Individually owned rentals should also be restricted to properties without debts against them. And why isn't MPAC actually using market value for taxation instead of arbitrary assessments?

[@sark407]

Bizarre to do an episode on empty home taxes and not mention BC's Speculation and Vacancy Tax, which has had yearly public reporting and a 5 year review done by UBC economists. Largest 'empty home tax' in the country.

[@MissingMiddlePodcast]

Thanks for your comment! We discuss the BC experience around the 11:30 mark, though we should have made it clearer that the Empty Homes Tax and the Speculation and Vacancy Tax are two different initiatives.

[@the_ikiru]

I am generally against taxes that have no perceivable benefit. Very few vacant homes exist and it hasn't led to any more properties being available on the market. Scrap the useless tax and focus on, as Mike said at the end, updating MPAC assessments.

[@kino_cinante]

If you need 600,000 homes now and your policies could only ever free up a few thousand homes then it can never work. It's just math and physics. It's a kumbaya feel good, do nothing policy.