Massachusetts Senate has agreed to legislation aimed at preventing the continuation of so-called home equity theft. An amendment added to the fiscal 2025 budget would eliminate a municipality's ability to take a property owner's earned equity beyond what is owed in unpaid taxes and "reasonably incurred expenses."
That’s great and all, but you’re talking from the perspective of someone who owns a house. I’m talking about changing policy to help people who are effectively locked out of buying a house due to hypercapitalism and caustic corporate investment strategies.
No, I’m saying we already have part of what you’re asking for, but phrased oppositely
Similar to
My towns website says this year the exemption is $285k, so for houses worth $570k, it’s exactly what you’re looking for: landlords taxed double… if there are any such houses. I know there are at least condos for less, so those people get an even bigger break on taxes than you’re asking, vs what a landlord would pay, and it’s theoretically possible some pay no tax at all for living in their own home. You could easily argue this approach is better than yours, since it works even better for low income, although that exemption should be even higher, given the high costs of houses here
While your complaint is valid in way too many places, you’re making it in a Massachusetts community where it’s just not.
I’d also like to point you to what could have a huge impact on new multi family housing across eastern MA, over time
We do have a huge housing affordability crisis here, but it’s not really the corporate investors. In general Massachusetts has a very high cost of living and decades of under building, too few housing units for needs. The residential exemption makes a difference to the extent local communities can, but it’s nowhere near enough. Encouraging development of more multi family housing (especially near transit) will make a bigger difference
Linking back to Boston, it’s not as clear since they talk about an amount of tax reduction, but I find it interesting there is a max discount of 90%. If there are houses that meet that criteria, a landlord would be taxed ten times what someone living there would