This would be great, but it’s not feasible as described. Property taxes are assessed against the property, not the owner. The county can determine whether someone has paid the tax on a particular property, but they are greatly restricted on details about the owner of that property. There is no reliable mechanism to determine how many properties a single person owns. A county auditor would be able to determine how many properties you own in that county, but the auditor of Alameda County in California has no conclusive way of knowing if you also own property in Anne Arundel County in Maryland.

The county auditor does have access to your income tax records, drivers license records, etc. They can easily and reliably determine your claimed county of residence when you pay your tax bill.

If you were to claim residence in Anne Arundel, the Alameda auditor could determine that you do not qualify for an owner-occupant credit available only to residents of Alameda County.

We already have “homestead exemption” and “second home” property taxes in most of the country. These give some small credits or exemptions for various purposes for the property where a homeowner resides. What we need to do is expand the scope of these owner-occupant exemptions. They need to automatically match future property tax hikes, so owner occupants are explicitly protected against them.

And then we increase the property tax annually until the owner occupancy rate is above 85%. We run it through the fucking moon, actual homeowners don’t see any increase. Corporate landlords will be fighting tooth and nail to issue land contracts and purchase agreements rather than leases.