Some of the demands of the protesters include the immediate lowering of rental prices with a reduction of up to 50%, the revamping of 3.8 million vacant homes, and the prohibition of evictions of vulnerable families.
Tax property by extra-EU owners at the tune of 10% a year and watch the housing crisis evaporate. In the South of Europe, merican capital has wrecked havoc in the rental market for over 10y now. I distinctly remember Madrid being gobbled up by merican private equity.
Include a clause for local companies with extra EU private equity, that one will hurt. It’s easy to fudge the accounting when you establish a local shell to parasitise the local rental markets, we need to hone in on shell companies that occlude the real ownership.
Points for acknowledging the obvious loophole, but ultimately you’re assuming EU investors wouldn’t jump in to fill the vacuum.
There are other tools to move the needle here (some of which these protestors are requesting explicitly). Ultimately you don’t care as much about the source of capital as you do about the practice.
Housing as a vehicle for capital wealth generation is what needs to be banned. Every house you own but don’t live in is taxed an increasing 10% every year, no limit.
What would you consider to be the limit for defining a house/apartment as being lived in by the owner?
What about a summer house in the countryside, where you only live for a month or so during the summer, should that be classified as simply a wealth generating property?
Or is it defined by how far away from a city it is located?
Say that a new factory/powerplant/facility opens an hour away by car from your summer home, this new facility needs a lot of staff, will your summer home be reclassified to a normal home because of a decision you didn’t make?
Local city laws could absolutely be set up to tax extra properties higher, but the administration would be huge!
