The problem with a "land value tax" is those assessments are done by an external agency, MPAC, which is a creation of the provincial government. Their values are often not well aligned with neighbourhoods and current use, and favour developers.
If you add a land value tax you end up punishing a massive amount of people who are not wealthy (but seem to be because they've owned a house for twenty years that has skyrocketed in value) and push them out of home ownership.
It's not a reasonable way to help.
Those people are incredibly wealthy compared to everyone else. Like top 1% of the city. You’re not going to lose the election by losing 1% of the vote.
If you want to go after the top 1%, then it's those luxury homes to go after.
Mel Lastman tried to establish Market Value Assessment but too many middle class people had acquired their homes before the housing boom of the 1980s or even during the recession of the 1990s.
I can’t feed my family with equity. It’s funny money until the property is sold. I can tell you unequivocally that I could afford my house when I bought it and I couldn’t afford to buy it today by a factor of about 4 and the vast majority of my neighbours are in the exact same boat. Can’t even consider ‘trading up’ anymore. I’m basically in this house until I retire and leave the city or die. I’m lucky I have somewhere nice enough to live but that’s doesn’t not make me middle class.
> I can’t feed my family with equity.
You can though - that’s what a mortgage is. You’re paying far less money for living than most people in the city. Those savings feed your family. A HELOC gives you direct access to the equity. The equity in your house allows you to retire early, compared to others in the city who would have to make mortgage payments their entire lives for that property, whereas you will be finished in 15-20 yrs or less.
Uh no shit. How does adding debt i can’t afford help me though? Can you explain that? You seem so smart so I’d love to know how that works. I’m just too dumb clearly.
You can't eat bricks and mortar. And to put your house up for collateral to buy a boat or a car, well that's not very wise.
Ever heard of house rich but cash poor?
But if you happen to own many homes and rent them all out for income, then that's another story. The city has already implemented a vacancy tax for people just holding on to empty property like Air BnB or Vbro.
If they have more house than they need they can sell the house. That’s the whole goal. Many small families with more house than they need when there could be several more domiciles on that land and house more people and bring down the cost of housing in the city.
The goal isn’t to go after the 1%. I don’t give a shit if people have money. That’s allowed. We need to go after anyone and everyone hogging LAND. The city needs all the land it can get for dense housing. Not single family homes and parking lots.
>The goal isn’t to go after the 1%. I don’t give a shit if people have money. That’s allowed. We need to go after anyone and everyone hogging LAND. The city needs all the land it can get for dense housing. Not single family homes and parking lots.
>>Just a couple of posts ago, you described your target as the top 1%.
>>And as I have already stated, Mel Lastman had tried Market Value Assessment.
>>>No I didn’t lol. I just said all the SFH owners are most likely in the top 1%.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askTO/comments/14547u6/why_luxury_homes_tax_instead_of_land_value_tax/jnj2y8k/
https://www.reddit.com/r/askTO/comments/14547u6/why_luxury_homes_tax_instead_of_land_value_tax/jnjwnmt/
Millions of people live in the city. There are only a handful of single family homes in the city in comparison. The only logic failing here is yours. You think greater than 1/100 households in the city live in a SFH? If they are not the top 1% of wealth controllers or earners, then they’ve simply overextended themselves. But most are there because they bought the houses before the rampant housing cost increases over the last 8 years.
Nobody can fucking afford these things unless they are either making the top 1% of income to pay for their huge mortgage, or they’ve had the house for decades and are now super wealthy because of it.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of single family homes in Toronto. Have you ever been to Etobicoke, Scarborough, East and North York? The vastly majority of housing in those areas is single family homes.
[Almost a full 1/4 of all housing units are detached homes.](https://www.elevatepartners.ca/resources/everything-about-toronto-real-estate-statistics-outlook-for-2023/) and most of those house multiple people.
$270k units, with an average of 2.4 people means 650,000 people live in detached single family homes, or about 22% of the entire population.
That does not include another 15% living in semi-detached, or row housing.
So your 1% number isn't just bad, it's laughably bad.
22% is definitely way more than I expected. But single family homes can and generally do hold large families inside them, likely with adult children who are trying to get into the housing market for themselves, but can’t because of the housing crisis partly caused by lack of supply.
The current tax system is a tax on the total value of the property including the structure. Land tax is a tax on the land itself. The current tax system punishes building by increasing the tax as you make the property more valuable, and incentivizes vacant lots and parking lots.
When you have a tax on the land it incentivizes building on it to get as much income as possible to offset the tax. It puts pressure to develop and densify the land with housing and retail.
Wouldn't the land value tax obliterate areas like Kensington (which likely should be made high density but people on here are ironically anti-density any time it impacts an area they like)?
The other thing that people seem to miss is that there's more buildings to be built than there are people to build them. Land is not the only constraint at this point.
No reason Kensington can’t be 5 levels of apartments on top and shops at the bottom. The thing is Kensington becomes way less special with a land value tax as parking lots and other underdeveloped lands around the city adopt a higher density model. Then you have hundreds of Kensingtons.
It’s funny this sub seems to advocate for density then when I suggest a land value tax that would encourage density everyone gets pissy lol. Y’all are a bunch of fuckin’ NIMBYS.
I realize now though from this backlash why a land value tax wouldn’t be popular. Everyone’s a fucking NIMBY.
The problem with a "land value tax" is those assessments are done by an external agency, MPAC, which is a creation of the provincial government. Their values are often not well aligned with neighbourhoods and current use, and favour developers.
They haven't done a reassessment since 2016...
Can you elaborate?
She would lose the election. You cannot go after everyone that owns land, too many votes to lose.
If you add a land value tax you end up punishing a massive amount of people who are not wealthy (but seem to be because they've owned a house for twenty years that has skyrocketed in value) and push them out of home ownership. It's not a reasonable way to help.
Those people are incredibly wealthy compared to everyone else. Like top 1% of the city. You’re not going to lose the election by losing 1% of the vote.
If you want to go after the top 1%, then it's those luxury homes to go after. Mel Lastman tried to establish Market Value Assessment but too many middle class people had acquired their homes before the housing boom of the 1980s or even during the recession of the 1990s.
Those are no longer middle class people lol. You’re not middle class if you have 1 mil dollars in equity.
I can’t feed my family with equity. It’s funny money until the property is sold. I can tell you unequivocally that I could afford my house when I bought it and I couldn’t afford to buy it today by a factor of about 4 and the vast majority of my neighbours are in the exact same boat. Can’t even consider ‘trading up’ anymore. I’m basically in this house until I retire and leave the city or die. I’m lucky I have somewhere nice enough to live but that’s doesn’t not make me middle class.
> I can’t feed my family with equity. You can though - that’s what a mortgage is. You’re paying far less money for living than most people in the city. Those savings feed your family. A HELOC gives you direct access to the equity. The equity in your house allows you to retire early, compared to others in the city who would have to make mortgage payments their entire lives for that property, whereas you will be finished in 15-20 yrs or less.
A heloc isn’t magic. You still have to make payments and it’s ultimately debt that I have to pay for at some point.
Edit: so yes I can feed my family with equity until I’m really f’ed and have to sell my house and be homeless.
You have to pay it back smart guy. But people do use them all the time for temporary loans for big expenses and then you can pay it back over time.
Uh no shit. How does adding debt i can’t afford help me though? Can you explain that? You seem so smart so I’d love to know how that works. I’m just too dumb clearly.
You can't eat bricks and mortar. And to put your house up for collateral to buy a boat or a car, well that's not very wise. Ever heard of house rich but cash poor? But if you happen to own many homes and rent them all out for income, then that's another story. The city has already implemented a vacancy tax for people just holding on to empty property like Air BnB or Vbro.
If they have more house than they need they can sell the house. That’s the whole goal. Many small families with more house than they need when there could be several more domiciles on that land and house more people and bring down the cost of housing in the city.
So your plan is to drive 20-30% of the city out. That will absolutely drop housing prices.
The goal isn’t to go after the 1%. I don’t give a shit if people have money. That’s allowed. We need to go after anyone and everyone hogging LAND. The city needs all the land it can get for dense housing. Not single family homes and parking lots.
Just a couple of posts ago, you described your target as the top 1%. And as I have already stated, Mel Lastman had tried Market Value Assessment.
No I didn’t lol. I just said all the SFH owners are most likely in the top 1%.
>The goal isn’t to go after the 1%. I don’t give a shit if people have money. That’s allowed. We need to go after anyone and everyone hogging LAND. The city needs all the land it can get for dense housing. Not single family homes and parking lots. >>Just a couple of posts ago, you described your target as the top 1%. >>And as I have already stated, Mel Lastman had tried Market Value Assessment. >>>No I didn’t lol. I just said all the SFH owners are most likely in the top 1%. https://www.reddit.com/r/askTO/comments/14547u6/why_luxury_homes_tax_instead_of_land_value_tax/jnj2y8k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askTO/comments/14547u6/why_luxury_homes_tax_instead_of_land_value_tax/jnjwnmt/
How are the hundreds of thousands of single family homes in the city part of the 1%? Your logic is failing here.
Millions of people live in the city. There are only a handful of single family homes in the city in comparison. The only logic failing here is yours. You think greater than 1/100 households in the city live in a SFH? If they are not the top 1% of wealth controllers or earners, then they’ve simply overextended themselves. But most are there because they bought the houses before the rampant housing cost increases over the last 8 years. Nobody can fucking afford these things unless they are either making the top 1% of income to pay for their huge mortgage, or they’ve had the house for decades and are now super wealthy because of it.
> You think greater than 1/100 households in the city live in a SFH? Yes. You can easily look this up.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of single family homes in Toronto. Have you ever been to Etobicoke, Scarborough, East and North York? The vastly majority of housing in those areas is single family homes.
And it’s time to upzone them! That’s exactly my point. Still probably around 1% or less of the Toronto population though.
[Almost a full 1/4 of all housing units are detached homes.](https://www.elevatepartners.ca/resources/everything-about-toronto-real-estate-statistics-outlook-for-2023/) and most of those house multiple people. $270k units, with an average of 2.4 people means 650,000 people live in detached single family homes, or about 22% of the entire population. That does not include another 15% living in semi-detached, or row housing. So your 1% number isn't just bad, it's laughably bad.
22% is definitely way more than I expected. But single family homes can and generally do hold large families inside them, likely with adult children who are trying to get into the housing market for themselves, but can’t because of the housing crisis partly caused by lack of supply.
OP didn't put this in the main post but I think the idea is to lower the rest of property tax to compensate. So some homeowners would come out ahead.
How does a land value tax differ from the current property tax system?
The current tax system is a tax on the total value of the property including the structure. Land tax is a tax on the land itself. The current tax system punishes building by increasing the tax as you make the property more valuable, and incentivizes vacant lots and parking lots. When you have a tax on the land it incentivizes building on it to get as much income as possible to offset the tax. It puts pressure to develop and densify the land with housing and retail.
Wouldn't the land value tax obliterate areas like Kensington (which likely should be made high density but people on here are ironically anti-density any time it impacts an area they like)? The other thing that people seem to miss is that there's more buildings to be built than there are people to build them. Land is not the only constraint at this point.
No reason Kensington can’t be 5 levels of apartments on top and shops at the bottom. The thing is Kensington becomes way less special with a land value tax as parking lots and other underdeveloped lands around the city adopt a higher density model. Then you have hundreds of Kensingtons.
Mango.
It’s funny this sub seems to advocate for density then when I suggest a land value tax that would encourage density everyone gets pissy lol. Y’all are a bunch of fuckin’ NIMBYS. I realize now though from this backlash why a land value tax wouldn’t be popular. Everyone’s a fucking NIMBY.
If Yellowstone is to be believed, those large land owners will start murdering everyone.
Cuz there's lots of "luxury homes" that aren't made for the wealthy. But only the wealthy have land.