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Location: Southernmost tip of the southernmost island in the southernmost state
982 posts, read 1,167,424 times
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There's a lot of dynamics in play on this subject.
If you restricted non-resident buyers, then you might lower housing prices. But then that might lead to an influx of mainland people with money who could/would purchase and relocate. It doesn't guarantee that long-time residents would benefit and in that scenario would actually be harmed by increased competition for employment.
A vacation rental (if properly identified/taxed) has the benefit of bringing in tax dollars with low utilization of the benefits a lot of those taxes fund. The residents of that house will not have kids going to schools here, or using a lot of the services for which their property taxes are allocated. And likewise their renters will pay GET and all sorts n of taxes that benefit residents more than vacationers.
I think the bigger issue is cracking down on the untaxed rental segment and getting those tax dollars into play. Of course that dosen't mean that our local politicians wouldn't squander said dollars
I see - do you have any statistics than non-locals are driving up real estate prices. I doubt the foreign buyer in Kahala on the oceanfront or the condo buyer at Park Lane has any material impact on housing prices for locals - or the people plucking down millions for Kakaako condo's.
You aren't addressing the real problem. The real problem are the people who live on Oahu and buying real estate and using it as vacation rentals or Airbnb - so many people are house rich on Oahu who bought a house 20-30 years ago, they are getting mortgages on those homes and using the proceeds to buy multiple houses....In 1988 the median home price was $210,000, now it is about $800,000 - what do you think some of those people are doing with that money....think about it. You could buy 5 houses if you knew what you were doing....
To fix the real problem isn't to attack the roughly 15% out of state buyers on Oahu who aren't buying in Pearl City - it is to enforce regulations on VRBO and Airbnb.....
Maybe you're right.
It just irks me that my street in Kailua is riddled with either empty homes or people who run illegal vacation rentals. The empty homes are out of state owners since I know the owners and talk to them when they are here. They are very well off and use the home as a vacation home.
Location: Southernmost tip of the southernmost island in the southernmost state
982 posts, read 1,167,424 times
Reputation: 1652
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyramidsurf
Maybe you're right.
It just irks me that my street in Kailua is riddled with either empty homes or people who run illegal vacation rentals. The empty homes are out of state owners since I know the owners and talk to them when they are here. They are very well off and use the home as a vacation home.
But it's not necessarily a bad thing. They are paying their annual property taxes but by not being here they are having little draw in county/city services.
They also aren't adding to traffic congestion, competing for employment opportunities, crowding the line-up at North Shore and dropping on locals' waves or even competing for available wahines or kanes to date.
I never did understand why people get upset when out of state people own homes and are not filling them year-round. Yet these same people complain that the island is overpopulated and that our current infrastructure (water, sewer, electricity, refuse, etc etc) is insufficient to support the current population. The hypocrisy is quite hilarious.
Further, people incessantly complain about these new luxury high rises when they are nothing but enormous cash cows for the city and state bringing in an absolute insane volume of tax revenue. In addition to providing thousands of local jobs (and corresponding tax revenue via income tax through wages and GET though material/equipment) before construction (engineers, architects, etc), during construction (various construction trades) and after construction (operations and maintenance contractors, etc), a single luxury tower (Waiea for example) that occupies just one acre of land on our island can bring in as much as $5M in annual property taxes. That is more RPT revenue than nearly all of Makakilo... on one acre of land. No roads to maintain the distribution of these housing units. No fire hydrants, street signs, street lights, sidewalks, curbs, sewers, water mains and stormwater systems littering many countless miles connecting many hundreds of homes - just one tower on one acre of land. The GET collected on rentals in this same building can easily bring in an extra $1M in state revenue and that's with significant vacancies.
If the whole island was being overrun by these opulent towers, sure, that would be awful. But they are condensing them in the urban core and in a specified area within the urban core. There is so much more land to build affordable housing on... let the rich have their playground. I never did understand the hatred when these people are contributing a ridiculously inordinate amount of tax revenue per capita, per household. We should be thanking them for investing in our state.
Seriously. Ever expanding population is foolish and I'm tired of the entire country being fed the narrative that it has to be so to "expand the economy" and prop up entitlements.
Yep. Take Canada, for example. There are 36 millions Canadians living on a land mass slightly bigger than the USA. Their citizens enjoy a higher standard of living than Americans. City governments over there recently raised taxes on foreign property buyers to keep prices down so Canadians could buy a home. Australia successfully did the same.
Their citizens enjoy a higher standard of living than Americans. City governments over there recently raised taxes on foreign property buyers to keep prices down so Canadians could buy a home. Australia successfully did the same.
Well, lets see - Canada has a lower per capita income than the US. Median income is comparable, but goods and services are far more expensive in Canada - as are taxes. So, I'm not sure how one would think Canadians would have a higher standard of living - plus, you'd be in Canada freezing most of the year.
Regardless - if one drinks the kool-aid that taxing foreigners "helps" Canadians or Australians and you actually believe that, then I'd suggest you rethink that position. Both countries are notoriously anti-immigration. Whether that is a good thing or not is for another forum.
Anyway, if Canada really wanted to help citizens buy a home, it would adopt mortgage interest deductions which by far would spur home ownership.
If you actually lived here, then you'd know there is plenty of land available for farming sitting vacant. Drive up to the North Shore on Oahu - vast land that was once farms now sitting vacant. Waimanalo Farms recently went out of business. The island of Lanai, with all the vast pineapple fields, now sit empty. Sugar Cane? Nope, none in Hawaii anymore - Dairy on the Big Island....well, that didn't turn out well.....
Island hop across the Pacific - and you'd see plenty of land and practically all the residents in poverty.
What caused pineapple and sugar to die. Was it NAFTA, as I've heard said?
I never did understand why people get upset when out of state people own homes and are not filling them year-round. Yet these same people complain that the island is overpopulated and that our current infrastructure (water, sewer, electricity, refuse, etc etc) is insufficient to support the current population. The hypocrisy is quite hilarious.
Further, people incessantly complain about these new luxury high rises when they are nothing but enormous cash cows for the city and state bringing in an absolute insane volume of tax revenue. In addition to providing thousands of local jobs (and corresponding tax revenue via income tax through wages and GET though material/equipment) before construction (engineers, architects, etc), during construction (various construction trades) and after construction (operations and maintenance contractors, etc), a single luxury tower (Waiea for example) that occupies just one acre of land on our island can bring in as much as $5M in annual property taxes. That is more RPT revenue than nearly all of Makakilo... on one acre of land. No roads to maintain the distribution of these housing units. No fire hydrants, street signs, street lights, sidewalks, curbs, sewers, water mains and stormwater systems littering many countless miles connecting many hundreds of homes - just one tower on one acre of land. The GET collected on rentals in this same building can easily bring in an extra $1M in state revenue and that's with significant vacancies.
If the whole island was being overrun by these opulent towers, sure, that would be awful. But they are condensing them in the urban core and in a specified area within the urban core. There is so much more land to build affordable housing on... let the rich have their playground. I never did understand the hatred when these people are contributing a ridiculously inordinate amount of tax revenue per capita, per household. We should be thanking them for investing in our state.
What caused pineapple and sugar to die. Was it NAFTA, as I've heard said?
Nope, those were long gone before NAFTA. Those two crops were outsourced to the philippines years ago.
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