> Property tax breaks in my locale lead to empty lots and empty buildings, which is the least efficient use of land imaginable.
replyCould you clarify what your locales property taxes are exactly? I'm trying to figure out whether you and Mouse are using the term the same way, in particular, tax on land or tax on buildings or both. (FWIW Wikipedia defines it as both.) It would also be very important to clarify how the tax break is defined, whether it applies to land and buildings equally, for example.
It’s both in my locale, land and improvements. There’s a tax break for vacant commercial space, which leads to commercial RE holding companies to simply speculate on commercial RE and sit on vacant properties. They have such little incentive to find a tenant or even sell that commercial properties sit empty for years, despite plenty of prospective tenants taking tours. I’m on an HOA board in a building with commercial units and it’s shocking how little pushback it takes for us to deny a prospective tenants - the commercial RE company basically doesn’t put up a fight at all when we say “no”.
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