191–200 of 204 posts
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Repeal it for everything except owner-occupied residences. That's the way homestead works in Florida.
Wait till you see what Props 50 and 68 do. Prop 50: pass your current tax rate on to your children. Prop 68: pass your current tax rate on to your grandchildren.
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Seems strange. Surely a management company would happily handle all that hassle and provide a secondary income stream. Sign a couple forms and boost investment income by a few percent? Surely that's not significantly more burdensome than the bureaucratic hassle of purchasing the property in the first place. I guess there's some significant tax/regulatory difference between capital gains from holding property vs. an i…
There's large downside risk to renting out property. One bad tenant trashing the place can cancel out years of rent. And in the Bay Area people invest more for appreciation than rent. The rent/price ratio is much higher elsewhere.
When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…
> The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. If the property tax is paid and the maintenance is kept up what is the problem created solely by the fact some homes are empty? The only reason these properties have such high values is because there is a demand that is not being supplied. Supplying more housing makes this a non-issue. > San Francisco has felt the brunt…
When I lived in San Francisco, the newly built condo building across from me was fully empty (but fully sold) for all the years I lived there. This is a tower in SOMA. There was only one apartment which appeared to be a corporate one that was occasionally utilized. The rise of foreign money parking money in real estate has screwed things up on a global level. San Francisco has felt the brunt of this due to their insa…
The next financial crisis will take them all like a tsunami. I really wouldn't want to be in their shoes.
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> (1) Repealing prop-13 is probably a non-starter but we could probably get away with repealing it for non-residents. Prop-13 was meant to prevent people from being driven from their homes by property tax increases, not to protect speculators from being taxed. I have never lived in California, and Prop 13 passed before I was born anyway, so I don't know much about the political backstory. That said, if this was the p…
The corporate protections are unintended consequences of the original proposition. They really weren't on people's radar. (This is why California residents should almost always vote against propositions, even if the idea and goals are good: Fixing the unintended consequences is extremely difficult. It would be better to find other ways to implement the idea. But getting anyone to fix proposition 13--even in this very…
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The premise isn’t that housing is treated as an investment. The premise is that housing is personal property. (Just like bread, etc., and many other things necessary for life.) It’s cities that are turning housing into an investment through laws turning it into a scarce resource. (Not just laws against building, but laws against short term rentals, boarding houses, tenements, etc.). It’s unsurprising that homelessnes…
San Francisco also has survivable winter temperatures, many shelters and other infrastructure to help the homeless, etc. I remember being in Penn Station in NYC on many nights when homeless people slept in the waiting rooms. Police would routinely come by and kick them out. When this happened during the winters in sub-zero temperatures this meant a very real risk of death for the homeless who were forced to sleep out…
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correct! I believe that the only groups it is moral to care about are: * people you love, care about, or otherwise know socially * groups that are oppressed along some axis * all of humanity
>all oh humanity Local life is naturally more important to me. I care more about the dying bird populations in my forest than “humanity” on the other side of the planet. You’re spreading your love too thin.
Yeah, that's gross.
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In principle I agree with you, but in practice what often happens is that it takes a herculean effort to pass any bill at all, and politicians are more inclined to declare victory than to pass a follow-up bill. Even if they pass a follow-up bill, it may take until the next legislative session, which could mean a huge delay. This creates incentives to get the bill modified before passage.
Absolutely. They will pass the bill and stop there. Very important to hold the line on this.
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> Any city will have some % of empty rentals, if it didn’t, no one would ever move around. You do understand that people advertise apartments available for rent before the previous tenant has moved out... In Québec, the majority of leases end on July 1st and you have a number of people moving on that day which is quite greater than the vacancy rate. You can sign a lease for a new apartment months ahead of time.
> You do understand that people advertise apartments available for rent before the previous tenant has moved out... True, but sometimes people just leave without giving warning, or the next person can't move in immediately. Sometimes, in a limited supply market, the landlord will wait for someone willing to pay a specific price since they know there's no other options. In San Francisco, that's the case for roughly 5%…