I think I've seen this map before (it isn't loading as I write this). However, what I'd love to see is: What the property taxes are and what they would be if the property was purchased today. I'm not sure if an absolute amount or a percentage would be more impactful when comparing the two. I'm sure it hits hard to see your neighbors paying 10% of what you pay - but probably just as much seeing $2,000 vs $20,000 in assortments.
California Property Taxes Mapped
11–20 of 110 posts
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#12This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Because the money is being used to pay for local services that "you" are enjoying.
Someone has to pay the taxes. It is difficult to see a good argument that having been a landholder for a long time gives some sort of moral right to be supported by others.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#13This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
I'd agree to some extent if it only extended to your verifiable primary residence. Sadly, it pretty much pertains to every property... regardless of who owns it and how much they use it.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#14This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
It's kind of insane. But it's also kind of insane that when the housing prices double or triple, you can expect your property tax to go up quite a bit as well, which makes it hard to plan for the future.
I think if the value increase cap was raised (gradually) to something like 4-5% per year, you would still have assessed values trailing market values, but not by nearly as much. People could still make worst case projections of taxes to see if they could afford things.
Washington state has a different system, where the total property tax of each taxing jurisdiction can only increase by 1% each year (subject to exceptions and what not), and then that amount is apportioned to each property based on the assessed value. This provides a limit on government spending as CA prop 13 does, but it doesn't limit changes in tax on any individual homeowner; if your property becomes more relatively valuable than others in your taxing districts, your bill goes up and theirs goes down. Which I'm sure causes assessments to be a lot more contenious.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Maybe the solution is to stop making property tax the main way that cities are funded. Among other things, this method of taxation tightly couples school funding to local home values. Areas with expensive homes have the best schools. (And areas with cheap homes have bad schools, which is not really what you want if you are trying to do something about inter-generational poverty.) This is self-reinforcing because now…
> It doesn't seem like a good idea to base city revenue on something that is so undependable, especially something that is so often treated as a speculative investment.
Isn't property tax a pretty reliable source of income?? I thought the income tax was an unreliable source of income because people can't always be relied on to generate income... but they do tend to pay their property tax.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Property taxes going up would be a negative feedback on property values. Perhaps part of why property values are so absurdly high is because there is little incentive to sell, which would add more supply to the market
There is actually a negative incentive to sell, because your property taxes will almost certainly go up if you buy another home.
It's gotten to the point that we have ballot amendments carving out exceptions for senior citizens, so they can take their old property tax rates with them when they buy new homes, but only if they move between certain counties that have a reciprocity agreement, blah blah blah. Clearly not the kind of policy a sane system would result in.
If you've owned a home in California for more than about 20 years, and you aren't in one of the senior citizen categories that is exempt from tax increases, it just doesn't make sense to sell your home unless you leave the state.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#17This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
The home owner is benefiting from increased home value and is still enjoying the services offered by the city, so why wouldn't they pay more?
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#18This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13. Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them. That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax…
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
If everyone owed a percentage of the same total, they wouldn't have to go up.
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint: Why should your property taxes go up just because the market around you skyrockets, when this is completely outside of your control? The bay area is a prime example of this.
Maybe the solution is to stop making property tax the main way that cities are funded. Among other things, this method of taxation tightly couples school funding to local home values. Areas with expensive homes have the best schools. (And areas with cheap homes have bad schools, which is not really what you want if you are trying to do something about inter-generational poverty.) This is self-reinforcing because now…
This comment is wrong on a fundamental basis.
Richer areas get less state funding than poorer school districts. These districts have to scramble to just narrow the gap rather than have more funding.
The richer areas have higher scoring schools because wealth correlates with school scores probably due to a combination of natural ability and a more conducive parental and community environment (all multiplicative and compounding over time]. A change in taxes does not affect this one iota.
There are already flat rates paid per parcel in many cities.
There are age over 55 exemptions for certain parcel taxes to raise money for schools.
An income tax per parcel does not scale. How do you tax rentals? Who pays the tax for rentals? What if you want to own multiple homes? What if you are buying a house for your parents to live in?
Re: California Property Taxes Mapped
#20I think I've seen this map before (it isn't loading as I write this). However, what I'd love to see is: What the property taxes are and what they would be if the property was purchased today. I'm not sure if an absolute amount or a percentage would be more impactful when comparing the two. I'm sure it hits hard to see your neighbors paying 10% of what you pay - but probably just as much seeing $2,000 vs $20,000 in as…
I think you can pretty much look at the highest tax being paid on a particular street and assume that everyone else would pay the same. Most of the time, all the houses on a street in California are roughly similar in value, because they were all built around the same time by the same developer and are very similar, barring extreme examples like Atherton or Beverly Hills where everyone has a custom home.