• Pyr@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        1 day ago

        Are there middle class property owners in New York city?

        I feel like middle class would all be renters there and upper class wealthy the only actual owners.

        • RamRabbit@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          Just like every other cost related to owning and maintaining a rental: property taxes get passed down to renters.

          • rushmonke@ttrpg.network
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 hours ago

            Wrong. Renters already pay what the market is able to bear.

            Landlords aren’t like “we’ll leave money on the table just because our renters were suckers and didn’t vote for people that will raise our taxes.”

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            1 day ago

            Do you suppose a wealth tax wouldn’t also be passed on to renters? Should we just not tax the rich at all since they’ll just pass the cost on to their tenants?

            • Pyr@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              23 hours ago

              There is one way a wealth tax probably wouldn’t be passed down to renters.

              If everything over a certain point is taxed at 100%.

              Including stocks and all that stuff that rich people typically store their money.

              That way it doesn’t matter if they increase the rent they still won’t get more money out of it so there’s no point in increasing it.

              They may be incentivized to sell properties in that case to bring property values down and therefore rent.

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          24 hours ago

          I know a couple people here who own apartments. Median income here I think is like $115k. None of them are much more than that.

        • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          13
          ·
          1 day ago

          Please enlighten me how a property tax increase doesn’t hurt the middle and lower class disproportionately. I’d love to hear this.

          • chloroken@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            Someone replied fifty minutes ago with an answer. You have no interest in learning why you’re wrong, stop pretending to give a shit.

            For everyone else, in NYC the middle class disproportionately rents. It is the wealthy who own.

            • RamRabbit@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              9
              ·
              1 day ago

              the middle class disproportionately rents. It is the wealthy who own.

              Just like every other cost related to owning and maintaining a rental: property taxes get passed down to renters.

              This tax hike disproportionately affects middle and lower class individuals.

              • chloroken@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                22 hours ago

                Not if paired with a rent freeze. Obviously. But you knew that already. You’re just here to agitate for the bourgeoise.

                • RamRabbit@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  21 hours ago

                  Economists of all stripes agree rent control doesn’t work. A mere 2% think it has positive effects, according to a 2012 survey by the IGM Forum.

                  The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and – among economists anyway – one of the least controversial. In 1992, a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.


                  NYC renters have suffered enough. Why would you subject them to failed policies like rent control?

              • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 day ago

                No, this is just what the landlords say, like how they say raising wages would impact jobs. It’s just not true. Landlords already charge the maximum people are willing and able to pay, they can’t really pass those costs on. Just like how in fact companies hire based on how many employees they need to fulfil their contracts, and it’s only affected marginally by the wages.

                • RamRabbit@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  When a cost goes up for all owners at once, this leads to everyone raising rent prices at the same time. There is no opportunity for a renter to jump ship to a cheaper property, they all went up. The maximum changed.

                  Yes, this will price out many people from being able to afford housing.

                  • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    1 day ago

                    That would leave properties empty with high taxes, pretty bad financial decision for a landlord. Leaving properties empty to land bank works if they don’t have to pay anything but it would be ruinous in this scenario. They will lower prices.

          • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 day ago

            Property tax is based on property values. Rich people have more valuable properties. Of the taxes we actually have, it’s one of the most progressive as it actually hits wealthy people more.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        21 hours ago

        Middle Class isn’t real. You are either a renter or an owner, property tax increase along with a rent ceiling and a vacancy tax only affects the owners.

          • ebolapie@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            17 hours ago

            It depends who you ask, but I tend to hold that the middle class is somewhere between plumbers with a sole proprietorship and petit-bourgeois family businesses up to a point. They do still exist, but it’s such a vanishingly small class I’m not exactly sure why I as a worker should be expected to defend their interests when they so rarely defend mine.

      • Djehngo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 day ago

        Like most taxes it’s possible to do a progressive property tax, where the more your properties are collectively worth the higher rate of tax you pay. This doesn’t sound like what is being proposed here, but it is very-much possible and hopefully it gets changed before it’s passed.

        Done right this will leave owner/occupiers in the same state they are in now, mildly reduce the profitability of small time landlords and make large scale landlords financial nonsense viable forcing them to sell.

        The actual risk is that because it lowers house prices by artificially reducing the demand it won’t encourage housebuilding which is the only real solution when more people want or need to live in a place than there is housing.

        That said, I am optimistic this increases supply enough by forcing sales of under occupied properties to offset the reduction in built supply.

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          24 hours ago

          I’m pretty sure property taxes aren’t progressive and I’m baffled as to why.

          Make it so like the first 100k is taxed low, and then ramp up so people with millions of property pay through the nose.

      • gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 day ago

        I’m considered middle class despite being something like in the top 10% of earners in the US and I don’t own any property. I don’t know if I could afford to own property with their current prices. I’m not certain property taxes hit the middle class as much as they might have back when my parents were in their prime. Of course it still hits a percentage of the middle class, but I’m suggesting that percentage is shrinking and smaller than the revenue it would generate from the rich.