
Voters could slam S.F. house flippers with major tax - bdcravens
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2014/06/17/sf-house-real-estate-flippers-tax-ballot-measure.html
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ScottWhigham
The easy response is, "What? California wants to tax something? And at a high
percentage? How is this news?"

I don't get the vitriol against the flippers in this scenario. Don't they
provide a valuable service? I've seen the HGTV shows that have "flippers"
coming in and spending (a) $400,000 cash for a foreclosed house, and then (b)
investing another $150,000 in renovating the house, bringing it up to code,
and adding designer touches. How is this not a good thing for the community?
This is not something that a "normal buyer" could do. Most people can't buy
foreclosures - you can't get your bank to approve a loan, for example. And
even if you could buy a foreclosure, you need to have lots of dry powder to
handle the unexpected. This is just not what most people can do.

Seriously - I don't get why people would be against this sort of thing.

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andymoe
The problem is not that they are buying foreclosed homes, renovating and
reselling them. The problem is that they are buying blocks of apartments,
evicting elderly and low income tenants via Ellis Act to get around rent
controls and then reselling them to those that can afford the higher real
estate prices.

But I generally agree that these types of laws tend to backfire and hurt
supply which is the main problem causes by decades of NIMBY activism.

