Everyone keeps hearing about an “Affordability Crisis.” This is no surprise, once you notice how Private Property Rights are constantly being abused.
The solution to the problem of affordability will be found through Free markets and property rights.
Free market solutions are based on common sense and consent.
Government interventionist ‘solutions’ are short-sighted, and are based on coercion and limiting choices. They also require unlimited spending and debt, and are designed to allow issues to be postponed until after next election. Their ‘solutions’ never solve anything.
The following are examples of free market solutions based on property rights and consent.
1. All homeowners will be allowed to rent to one tenant income tax free at the state level.
This will be permitted only in the absence of a restrictive covenant which forbids this, which is common in gated communities.
2. Any income provided from a second or additional tenant will taxable at the state and local level.
A family, consisting of parents and children, counts as one tenant. If grandma moves in, she is a second tenant.
A boyfriend and girlfriend, or roommates, count as one tenant. If an additional person moves in, he is a second tenant.
Property owners can rent or decline to rent to anyone they choose. It is their property.
A “certificate of occupancy” will not be required. A tenant may request one, but the homeowner doesn’t need to comply.
It is also worth noting that Jeffrey Tucker pointed out in one of his books that private homeowners mainly want steady income and a reliable tenant. This keeps costs for the tenant low.
Homeowners therefore have less of a desire for rent increases than public housing officials.
3. Curb Rights and Overnight Parking
“Curb Rights” are the right of the homeowner to the area immediately in front of his property. He can rent the space to anyone he chooses and for any price.
This option will be available in any area where overnight parking is allowed.
4. Creating a free market in child care. Free market child care vs. government approved child care:
Child Care will consist of 2 choices. These will consist of either a private, unregulated, tax-free market or a taxable and regulated market with government regulations to set rates.
A Private, Unregulated, and Tax Free Market-an example.
Your neighbors raised two fairly well-behaved children who grew up, got jobs, and moved out, and are now willing to provide child care. That is their reference for you.
So as long as you give your consent, they would watch your child and any child care income would be tax free at the state and local level, although they would have to pay national income tax.
So, for example, if they watch 5 children for 40 hours per week for $100 each, they would receive $500 per week, $25,000 per year, tax free, plus two weeks vacation. The parents would be paying $2.50 per hour, $5,200 per year. Child care would primarily consist of allowing the children to play in the yard, watch T.V., or have a book read to them, and eating lunch.
The unregulated private market would also provide many other options.
The Alternative:
Government approved and regulated child care, with government rates applying.
New York rates for the Child Care Assistance Program in 2024 (CCAP) varied from $350-$404 weekly per child.
Anyone who wants government involvement in this issue will have to pay the government price and obey its rules.
Additionally, as with private housing, private providers want steady income and have much less of an incentive to raise rates. Private rates are set by the market, government rates by politicians.
5. Improved property rights and families.
Providing compensation for eminent domain and civil forfeiture
Compensation for Eminent Domain seizures will be three times the value of the property. The owner of a property worth $300,000 seized through Eminent Domain will receive $900,000 in compensation.
Currently, some homeowners who are targets of seizure through eminent domain end up slightly ahead, some slightly behind, and some are ‘over a barrel’, with their negotiating position destroyed, at which point they are cheated. This will provide compensation.
B. Civil forfeiture is THEFT, and is ended.
All victims will be compensated with $100,000 each, tax-free.
Criminal forfeiture is another matter, and remains unchanged.
The ideas above will provide workable solutions to the government interventionist-created problems of “affordability.”