ALAB because “renting” residential property is abhorrent behavior.

Owner Occupancy Credit against property taxes. If you live in a house you own, you get a credit. If you own the house and don’t live in it, you pay the full rate. Enact an owner-occupancy credit against property taxes, then increase both the tax rate and the credit until these corporate bagmunchers are no longer a problem.

“But landlords will just raise their rent to cover the increase”. They could try. But, if we raise it high enough, they will be able to make far more money issuing a private mortgage, or offering a land contract, or converting to condominiums, or otherwise getting their tenant’s names on the deed and becoming eligible for the credit.

“But these landlords will be forced to take a risk on these sub prime borrowers.”. They are already taking that risk by renting to them, and the remedy is basically the same: if they can’t make their payments, evict them, take back the house, and offer it to someone else.

The only residential property that should be feasible to rent are the additional units in a duplex, triplex, or quadplex, where the owner of the building lives on site in one of the units. Outside of these small, multifamily homes, “rent” should be a practice found only in commercial or industrial real estate.