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How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

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Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#121

Post by BubRoss »

claudeganon wrote: post #104
BubRoss wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is social housing really a good focus in extremely valuable real estate areas? Many places in the world are too expensive for most people to live in. Places like Vancouver and Toronto though, have a skyline of cranes building high rises to meet the demand. Social housing in high prices areas is manipulation that doesn't help many people. Letting the demand be met on the high end and shooting for social housing in mor…

Vienna is consistently ranked among the best cities in the world and has a high degree of social housing. And the same is true for places like Singapore and cities across the more social democratic parts of Europe. If anything, the availability of social housing puts a downward pressure on prices and makes sure that people who perform many of the vital functions of running cities (healthcare workers, teachers, infras…

What Singapore does is not at all the same as what is talked about here. Singapore isn't building housing in the hottest areas and selling it for cheaper than a market rate, they are building their own housing and selling it at market rates to Singaporean citizens with restrictions.

San Francisco forces developers to have certain amounts of units that get rented out for half the normal price as a stipulation for building. This is directly counter to market prices in desirable areas.

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#122

Post by ericmay »

cactus2093 wrote: post #120
ericmay wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear (and this is probably my fault) when I said natural reasons I was thinking along the lines of naturally occurring economic reasons. For example, if people move to my town that will drive property prices. On an individual level there isn’t too much I can do. Maybe I vote to restrict immigration or enact anti-growth policies such as a maximum limit on children. Maybe I sell my home to a developer who turns…

> I don’t buy for a second though, that if your home value doubles that your lifestyle doubles. That's just true by definition of how a price works though, it's not really up to each person to agree or disagree with. I get that you're not realizing the gains when your house goes up in value. But a property tax is not a capital gains tax, it's a wealth tax on a specific type of wealth (that happens to be very importan…

But it’s not true by definition. If my property value doubles tomorrow, whether I want it to or not, my salary doesn’t double. So taxing me means I make less money now. I think we can argue about it, but you can’t say that my “lifestyle doubles” it doesn’t.

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#123

Post by BubRoss »

scarface74 wrote: post #29
BubRoss wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like these things happened over night. If someone bought a house for 100k and it is now worth two million, I'm not sure they can claim they are being gouged on a 2000% increase of equity. Buying land still doesn't entitle you to be able to perpetually afford to live in one of the most desirable places on earth.

Well. No one is “entitled” to live in California. There are 49 other states in the US. There are also many other cities where the pay vs cost of living makes a lot more sense.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, this just sounds like a generalization of what I was saying (although not all of California is expensive).

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#124

Post by nerfhammer »

carty76ers wrote: post #85
nerfhammer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more palatable argument is that it would create incentives to keep housing prices stable, rather than expecting a lifetime skyrocketing windfall at everyone else's expense.

The counter argument is: If a widowed elderly woman lives in a 900 sqft home bought in 1963, how is it her fault that the world went crazy and values it at $1,200,000+ today? Have you seen a 1963 house? They’re a fire hazard not worth 1.2M.. And yet, you want her owe tax on that crazy value, yet she is stuck with a static retirement income? Where should she go? Idaho? I’m for increasing tax on income earners, but not…

It sounds like keeping housing prices stable rather than expecting/encouraging housing prices to skyrocket indefinitely at everyone else's expense would solve both problems, no?

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#125

Post by rcpt »

ericmay wrote: post #108
robotresearcher wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old lady made $1m in unearned value in her house. She can use a part of that value to pay taxes on the increase, live and die in the house, and her heirs still make free money.

It’s also unrealized. Maybe just tax on the sale or transfer. Honestly the whole situation is a nightmare. I feel like whenever I think of a “solution” I just find problems with it.

> unrealized

She can borrow against it and easily afford property taxes for the rest of her life.

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#126

Post by k-dude-sj »

A simple crazy fix idea, eliminate the collection of tax revenue on property... collect county taxes through income like everything else. Counties have been burdening their revenue needs onto only property owners. just add it to our collective April tax bill maybe? too simple?

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#127

Post by rcpt »

malvosenior wrote: post #66
FreakyT wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative is that we basically force people out of houses they've bought by gouging them with taxes. I would argue that being able to afford a place in the 1970s does not endow one with an inalienable right to remain there forever. Locking the property taxes creates an artificial incentive to hold onto property forever, thus creating market stagnation.

I would argue that buying a house does give you the inalienable right to live there forever (if you so choose). Anything else is basically the elimination of the concept of private property. Kicking people out of their houses is not a sign of a healthy society.

You're confusing the "fee simple" notion of land tenure that we have in the United States with "allodial title" which doesn't happen anywhere anymore because it turns out that's a terrible way to run a society.

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#128

Post by Fainsan »

This isn't a simple supply and demand situation, zoning issue, or tax issue. If we built 1 million homes in California, only a small percentage of those homes would be deemed "affordable housing" and what would have to control that affordability? We don't want to have to subsidize, we need broader laws governing home values tied into median income for any given area. All banks scrutinze lending based off 35% Debt to Income ratio's, why not scrutinize appraised values of homes and include consideration for median income in all evaluations?

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#129

Post by rcpt »

ericmay wrote: post #122
cactus2093 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t buy for a second though, that if your home value doubles that your lifestyle doubles. That's just true by definition of how a price works though, it's not really up to each person to agree or disagree with. I get that you're not realizing the gains when your house goes up in value. But a property tax is not a capital gains tax, it's a wealth tax on a specific type of wealth (that happens to be very importan…

But it’s not true by definition. If my property value doubles tomorrow, whether I want it to or not, my salary doesn’t double. So taxing me means I make less money now. I think we can argue about it, but you can’t say that my “lifestyle doubles” it doesn’t.

Your borrowing power doubles.

Re: How California Became America’s Housing Market Nightmare

#130

Post by scarface74 »

BubRoss wrote: post #123
scarface74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well. No one is “entitled” to live in California. There are 49 other states in the US. There are also many other cities where the pay vs cost of living makes a lot more sense.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, this just sounds like a generalization of what I was saying (although not all of California is expensive).

It sounds like you saying that it would be more fair to make them leave by pricing them out so other people can buy their homes.
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