One of the big problems Carbondale is the high percentage of absentee landlords and rental properties. I have seen data indicating that 71% of housing in Carbondale is rental property and only about 28% is owner occupied. That means we have a whole lot of housing in the city that is lived in by people who do not own it and have no vested interest, aside from their security deposit, in maintaining it. Meanwhile, we have comparatively few owners of property in Carbondale who are responsible for maintaining a lot of the housing in the city.
Surely the people who own it have a vested interest in maintaining it? Usually tenants don't have an obligation to do home maintenance. The city should go after the landlords if they are not keeping property up, or else pass laws or additional taxes to make going after them more effective. Why do we have absentee landlords that treat their properties badly? Because they can make money doing so. We have to make maintaining rental property incentive-compatible.
ReplyDelete