I wrote about this topic before, proposing some measures to make rental market work for tenants. I recommended tax on unoccupied properties as well as strict ethics code for real estate agents.
Now I think these would not be enough. I think government should cease full control of all rental properties and then rent them out to tenants. People should only be allowed to own their own home, one property and that is it.
Investment properties should only be allowed for properties still under construction and 20 years after the completion of the building investor must be mandated to sell his investment property to the state.
Home is a basic human right, yet out current reality turns real estate into a major speculative asset. A few robber barons, rich enough to own multiple properties put lives of millions of renters in precarious situation for their selfish gains. Renters right to have a home is more important than profits of the few real estate tycoons.
It is clear current system cannot safeguard this right. Therefore, a sweeping reform is needed to fix rental market and prevent society from sliding into neo-feudalism. Exploitative landlords together with their loyal real estate agents abuse tenants worse than Medieval Barons abused their villeins. Tenants must deal with substandard and overpriced properties for the sake of eking more billions for landlords.
Theoretically competition between landlord for prospective tenants would force them to improve their properties and provide better services, but reality is that there is no competition between landlords. Instead, there is a competition between tenants for available properties. This competition forces tenants to accept ever worsening living conditions to avoid being homeless.
There is a clear dependency of tenants on rental properties and landlords exploit it.
Similar situation happened before with utilities, schools, public transport and many other industries. In all these instances government chouse to nationalize these industries to guarantee provision of services to citizens. Time has come for rental market to be nationalized as well.
Government control of rental market can take two forms. One is nationalization. Government would simply buy our every single investment property and will be the only landlord in the country.
Second option is to instead create a Rental Authority that will control rental properties on behalf of the owners This is already happening with traditional real estate agencies, however the difference here would be that Rental Authority will have full control over the property and beneficiary owners will have no say in property management.
Mandatory Rental Authority will rent property from the owner for government approved affordable rental rate and then rent it out to tenant for equally affordable rate. That will make sure that owner do not suffer directly if their property is occupied by bad tenant. Meanwhile Rental Authority can absorb losses from few bad tenants with sheer scale of their operations.
People who do not rent to Rental Authority will be penalized with high property tax on unoccupied or privately rented properties.
There can also be a combination of first and second method. Some properties will be nationalized and managed by Rental Authority and others would be managed by Rental Authority on behalf of the owners.
That way government can make sure that everyone can have access to rental properties and prevent landlords from evicting or otherwise exploiting tenants.
Of course, Rental Authority would be instructed to prioritize housing as many people as possible and avoid any eviction with exception of extreme circumstances.
Housing crisis long went out of control with as many as 50 prospective tenants competing for the same rental property with each other. We need to put an end to it as soon as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment