I'm in the middle of putting together a Halloween party for 500 or more little monsters tonight at our learning center.
I'd love to see some numbers by geographical area on rents and property taxes. I know they exist and they will differ by region. My hunch is that landlords, even the kindest, are in it for the money. As I pointed out to Max my knowledge of landlords big and small is that they will be motivated by greed not need. They may cut a special deal for a good tenat, but, thats about it.
One thing you guys may want to consider is suburban sprawl. How will these people who have gotten into these 5 acre mini-estates fare in an economic downturn. Many of these people are of limited economic means and income potential. I have read this is a national trend; people moving out of the county that the city is located in and into an adjoining county. Either motivated by white flight, lower taxes or both.
Sincerely, Tom
Brad De Long wrote:
> Re:
> >
> >What really amazed me after I got the house was how much you get by buying.
> >A lot more habitat for the money, plus the homeowners insurance seems like
> >a luxery.
> >And of course the tax deduction every one raves about, but I think most
> >low-income people get no benefit from this.
>
> I remember (I may be wrong about this) that effectively no household making
> less than $35,000 a year pays enough in taxes for the home-mortgage
> deduction to be worth anything to them. It's a program for $80,000 a year
> households paying $1500 a month mortgages and saving $4000 a year in taxes
> as a result.
>
> Of course Max (and I) would say that mortgage interest payments paid by
> apartment-owning landlords are deductible as business expenses, and are
> largely passed-through to tenants, so that tenants benefit from the
> mortgage interest deduction too...
>
> But even so *this* portion of the tax code is appallingly regressive,
> yet--because every elite journalist benefits from it massively--any attempt
> to scale it back meets with immediate loud media howls... (Not that either
> political party cares about making the tax code more progressive these
> days...)
>
> Brad DeLong