(12-27-2024, 11:36 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(12-27-2024, 10:09 AM)mikesez Wrote: Me too.
Condominium and townhome ownership gets complicated, and many of them probably should be rentals. 
But single family, separated homes are not complicated at all and they should never be marketed to landlords. Only a sick society would allow that. The same kind of sick society that would allow TV advertisements for expensive prescription drugs or ads for sports betting during the game.
Midwestern states in particular, most of them do not have a homestead exemption on their property tax. They should implement one, it would tip the scales back towards home ownership.
Another thing, that any state could do, that might help, is a law stating that all new lease contracts on single family homes must have a buyout provision at the end of the lease term. Take the monthly rent, current interest rates, and back those numbers up into a 30-year mortgage loan amount, multiply by 1.25 to account for a 20% down payment, and that is the maximum buyout price. If the rent goes up next year, the buyout price goes up next year, we don't want this to be rent control. Most renters would not buy out, but some would and it would make a difference.

I COMPLETELY disagree with ALL of that.  If people, or companies, want to build homes and rent them out, what in the world is wrong with that?  That increases the housing stock, and it offers homes for rent that people apparently want to rent.  
I am also against your idea of government forcing landlords to sell homes at the end of lease terms, and the government setting the price.  That's a terrible idea.  The government should stay out of things like that.

We need to let the free market sort things out.  If I want to build a home and rent it out, or if I want to buy a home and rent it out, I should have the right to do that, and I should not be forced to sell that house at the end of the lease term.  If you put your ideas into effect, people would stop building houses.  And then with the reduced supply, the price of houses would skyrocket.

I only said that the landlord should be forced to offer the home for sale at a price determined by the rent that the landlord himself set. Usually the tenant will not be able to afford this price and nothing will change. This is only for the unusual case where a landlord gets too speculative on the market.

Home ownership is our main ladder up into a lifestyle of investment instead of labor.  We need a steady stream of new people coming into the investment scene and having the capital to start new businesses or we will see the economy turn inward and stop growing.

We should not allow the people who currently have access to large amounts capital to hog the resources that go into building homes and at the same time wall off people who don't have access to capital from ever owning those homes.

The free market is not a good unto itself, it is there to ensure sustained and broad-based economic growth.

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