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California population declines for first time in more than a century

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Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#511

Post by jjav »

ohazi wrote: post #183
jshen wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind about CA, once you buy that $800k house, your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

i.e. the original sin that gave us this problem in the first place. It makes absolutely no sense to have the older, wealthier, luckier, "I got here early, therefore I'm set for life" generation pay $300/year, while the couple in their thirties who moved in two years ago, have a new baby, and can barely afford the mortgage and daycare despite both parents working in tech have to pay nearly $15,000/year. I know the ori…

> pay $300/year, [...] pay nearly $15,000/year.

That's fairly exagerated. It means the recent buyer paid 1.5M for the same house the older buyer paid well under 30K (since their tax has been increasing 2% every year since then).

It might be true somewhere, but finding a house worth well under 30K in 1978 (start of prop 13) and 1.5M today, isn't that common.

My neighborhood is 25 years old and the largest real spread between property taxes is ~2x, very far away from the 50x of your example.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#512

Post by jjav »

defterGoose wrote: post #306
seryoiupfurds wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other jurisdictions the solution is to allow the retired homeowner to defer property taxes, to be paid out of the eventual proceeds of a sale.

A sane, rational solution to a huge, massive problem? We wouldn't want any of those screwing up our politics, would we? /s But really, Prop 13 is among the most ham-fisted damaging legislation you could possibly point to...

It's not legislation, it's a proposition.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#513

Post by jjav »

ohazi wrote: post #222
jshen wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely afford it on two tech salaries. I was exactly the person your describing 15+ years ago, but my wife wasn’t working so we only had one tech salary. Fast forward all that time, and the housing market you complain about will likely be a huge wealth generator for you, where as this cheap houses in the middle of no where won’t be.

> Fast forward all that time, and the housing market you complain about will likely be a huge wealth generator for you But this perpetuates the problem, and makes it much worse for the next generation! You do realize that this can't continue indefinitely, right? I mean, maybe this doesn't bother you, which I suppose is fine. Does it bother you? Look, you're technically right. I also own a house in California, and am…

> But this perpetuates the problem > Look, you're technically right.

Technically right is the same as right.

It is extremely difficult to change all of society. It is honorable to try.

But meanwhile while waiting for that change, the OP could shoot themselves in the foot by renting, or improve life by buying.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#514

Post by dragonwriter »

jjav wrote: post #512
defterGoose wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sane, rational solution to a huge, massive problem? We wouldn't want any of those screwing up our politics, would we? /s But really, Prop 13 is among the most ham-fisted damaging legislation you could possibly point to...

It's not legislation, it's a proposition.

Propositions are legislation; specifically, they are one of:

(1) initiatives which are exercises of legislative power reserved by the people to adopt a law initiated by citizen petition,

(2) referenda which are exercises of legislative power reserved by the people to approve or reject measures passed by the legislature, either with the assent of or over the veto of the governor.

(3) legislation referred to the people by the legislature (often because it would impact a previously passed initiative statute in a manner which the legislature has not been delegated the power to do without popular assent.)

Prop 13 of 1978 (proposition numbers get reused, so “Prop 13” alone is technically, though only rarely practically, ambiguous—though confusion from that ambiguity has been suggested to have helped the defeat of Prop 13/2020, which was on the ballot with two measures that would have modified Prop 13/1978, Prop 15/2020 [which failed] and Prop 19/2020 [which passed]), specifically is an initiative constitutional amendment.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#515

Post by dragonwriter »

jshen wrote: post #176
gautamcgoel wrote: post #67

I'm a PhD student at Caltech. I'd love to stay in CA and become a prof at one of the world-renown universities in the state. The cost for a nice house is > $800K in all of the cities hosting these universities; on top of that, the state income tax on a prof's salary is 9-10%. CA is basically telling me (and millions of other millennials) that we are not wanted here.

One thing to keep in mind about CA, once you buy that $800k house, your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

> your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases.

That’s...not true.

For the ad valorem part of real estate taxes (classic “property tax”), the assessment will rise with value increases to a level capped by a cumulative annual increase of the lower of 2% or the actual level of inflation from the date of purchase or qualifying improvement eligible for full-market valuation. The tax rate for those taxes can also change in principal, but the other part of Prop 13 limits the ad valorem rate to 1%, so most jurisdictions are maxed out.

But California has another form of real estate taxes not subject to the limits on classic property taxes, parcel taxes (Mello-Roos fees) which are assessed at a flat dollar amount against all properties in a taxation district.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#516

Post by dragonwriter »

jjav wrote: post #510
jshen wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind about CA, once you buy that $800k house, your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

> your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases. Well it will rise 2% every year.

> Well it will rise 2% every year.

Less (excluding potential new or increased Mello-Roos fees), no matter how the real estate market goes, if, as has often been the case recently, general inflation is lower of 2% or the actual rate of inflation.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#517

Post by dragonwriter »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #197
namelessoracle wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Echoing others Atlanta is pretty much exactly what you are asking for. I dont think that will stay true for much longer with google and microsofts announced investments there however.

Aren't Californians boycotting Georgia over voting laws?

Some might be, but the people that are politically rage-quitting CA overlap significantly with the faction that supports those laws.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#518

Post by squaredisk »

pbuzbee wrote: post #178

I feel like it's only going to get worse. California has a good number of problems: housing costs, traffic, wildfires, homelessness, ... and the high tax rate you pay for the privilege of enjoying them. But I haven't seen California take meaningful steps to solve any of these. We're still in the stage of "problems are getting worse", and any solutions will take a long time to materialize. I grew up in California. It'…

> I feel like it's only going to get worse.

Why is this a bad thing? Less crowd is good for everyone. Is it not?

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#519

Post by raldi »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #500
raldi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary reason we have a fire season at all is that we don't let people build housing in California's existing cities and towns, and so instead they sprawl out into fire-prone areas requiring long-distance power lines. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/news/release/wui-interface-intermi...

Fire is a part of the lifecycle of many of the plants native to California. If power lines didn't spark fires, something else would (lightning if nothing else). That said, power lines do have a tendency to spark fires in remote areas on the windiest days, which is not ideal. But eliminating power lines still wouldn't eliminate brush fires.

But once you start letting people build houses in fire country, they pressure the local and state government to suppress those natural fires, and thus, instead of frequent manageable ones, we get less-frequent infernos.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#520

Post by raldi »

herbst wrote: post #502
raldi wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://redd.it/an79j2 Never gets too hot, never gets too cold, doesn't rain at all for half the year, you can grow just about anything in your garden, there's natural beauty all around and you get get out there quickly and easily to enjoy it — beaches, snowy mountains, hiking, rolling hills...

There are places in Spain just like that. Only that they are not overpopulated already. That's not exclusive to California, rather available several times on that line around the globe.

I agree that there are places like this in Europe, but generally in Europe, they allow four-to-six-story multifamily housing in their cities. What part of Spain looks like this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_District,_San_Francisco...

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