Reply to Americans locked into lower mortgage rates have been increasingly unwilling to sell their homes.

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Reply to "Americans locked into lower mortgage rates have been increasingly unwilling to sell their homes."

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[quote=Anonymous]I totally get it and if someone is living in the house, I don't resent it. I wouldn't move either!

I think where it becomes a problem is when people snapped up a few homes at the low rates (or refinanced down to a low rate) and have no desire to sell because the mortgage is so manageable and with real estate prices continuing to go up, why not hold on until you can get as much as possible? While I understand this approach from an individual financial standpoint, from a public policy standpoint this is problematic because to reduces inventory of available homes (making it harder for people to move for jobs, upgrade to a family home, or begin to build family wealth). It concentrates a lot of the real estate wealth in fewer hands, and runs counter to some of our other policy goals (neighborhoods of renters tend to be less stable, have more crime, etc.). A lot of people also AirBnB these homes, which can be bad for both the neighborhood and for the local economy depending on how that's taxed. There's not a ton of social benefit in enabling people to own a lot of SFHs as investment properties -- it would be better for society if they focused investments on commercial properties or multi-family housing.

So I think we should be taxing investment properties more, especially when they are single family homes. And limiting AirBnB's more, or taxing them at a much higher rate (more like hotels). We should incentivize people to sell more of these properties that they aren't living in as it would get more families into their own residential home and also help with problems like crime that have become more of an issue in recent years.[/quote]

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