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High property taxes are good

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Re: High property taxes are good

#101

Post by jeffbee »

spicymaki wrote: post #54
Victerius wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early born privilege.

This is local democracy in action. Vested landowners can put up barriers to entry to prop up their investments. They can also hand it down to their family, entrenching wealth for generations. Sucks to be an outsider.

Local example of this in action. In Berkeley there were two candidates for District 4 supervisor in 2022: the incumbent, who owns two houses, each worth over $2 million, and the challenger, a renter. The challenger had to withdraw from the race because his rent was increased to a level he can no longer afford.

Re: High property taxes are good

#102

Post by binarymax »

An effective 2.5% property tax, such as the example given for Chicago, is not high.

Try living in NY, where effective tax is between 3.5% and 5% (mine is 3.8 in the city of Rochester). It’s really hard for people to become homeowners at that rate, especially when the market goes up and an appraiser can show up at any time and re-assess your value and raise your taxes.

Re: High property taxes are good

#103

Post by BLO716 »

The real estate industry is a closed looped system, and because its monopolistic, anti-free market, and dealing with a finite product that simply trades hands its golden age was done after the great expansion of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Treaties of 1848.

This a foundational industry that pitted the upstate New Yorkers and the agrarian Virginians against Alexander Hamilton at almost every corner of his life in the establishment of free markets disruptions with the Bank of New York and later the Department of Treasury.

Disruption can be seen in vertical markets of big cities and land creation like that of China in the South China Sea with man-made islands and expansion of territorial rights, but outside of that it's golden age is gone and the taxation will only become more intrusive for programs as our populous grows and the need to extract support for the expansion from the adult working class is through taxation.

Hopefully this isn't rambling, but rather insight into how perverse the market has become because of no more land, and way more people.

Re: High property taxes are good

#104

Post by Dracophoenix »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #68
Dracophoenix wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between the two in reality? Theoretically, with a land value tax, "improvements" (however that's defined) aren't added to the final tax calculation. However better-looking homes are then a signal that drive up demand for (and therefore price of) land so ultimately it seems LVT does punish improvements if only indirectly.

> What's the difference between the two in reality? Land value tax incentivises turning a single-family home into a multi-unit building. Property tax explicitly discourages that.

Instead, I see LVT incentivizing the production and purchase of mobile homes, RVs, and hotels. You could live tax free if you don't have a permanent abode.

Re: High property taxes are good

#105

Post by JumpCrisscross »

beefman wrote: post #80
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gives a value for the lot far lower than the actual market price of an empty lot in this location Retrofitting or tearing down a house in California is expensive. Particularly if it's an old house where there could be e.g. lead or asbestos. Clean lots (presuming it wasn't previously a laundromat) command a value from the baggage they clearly don't bring.

There's no teardown required here. Developing an empty lot and selling the result will lose you a $1M+ in my town. Spec home development ceased here in 2019.

> no teardown required here. Developing an empty lot and selling the result will lose you a $1M+ in my town.

Lots of people want to design their own homes. For them, paying up for an empty lot is worth it. Put another way: those buying empty lots are developers or rich. With rates rising, the latter set marginal pricing in desirable places.

So no, there is no teardown required. But a teardown is desirable to some people. They bid up empty lots. Hence the deviance you notice, which is well documented in other places rich people like building designer homes. (Hamptons, Jackson Hole, et cetera.)

Re: High property taxes are good

#106

Post by yellowapple »

chadash wrote: post #81
vanilla_nut wrote: post #2

In my region of northern New Hampshire, there are a lot of retired folks with houses rising from $200k-ish values to closer to $500k-ish values in the last 5-10 years. As such, there's a lot of discussion around lowering property taxes to help these retirees. In my opinion? Fuck 'em. Property taxes are a brilliant method of perfectly progressive taxation: you can always choose to live in a cheaper home. If your home…

> You can always choose to live in a cheaper home. So your 90 year old grandpa has been living in a two bedroom apartment on the lower east side for 65 years. When he moved in at age 25, it was considered a crummy but affordable neighborhood, but now it's expensive and desirable. You want a 90 year old to have to move? I agree that maybe a 65 year old couple no longer needs to be in a 3,000 square foot home, but ther…

If Grandpa rents that apartment instead of owning it, he'd if anything stand to benefit (especially if we tax land value specifically and not the building).

Re: High property taxes are good

#107

Post by btilly »

throwthroyaboat wrote: post #73
anonymousiam wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 solved two problems at once. It forced a reduction in the out-of-control government spending, and it saved seniors from losing their houses. IMHO the only problem with Prop 13 was the "grandfathering" clause. The cuts should have been perpetual and across the board.

Doesn't Prop 13 also apply to commercial property? And second/third/30th houses? I think they smuggled a bear in as a rabbit with this one.

It does, but commercial property tends to change ownership and undergo construction more often. Therefore property taxes on commercial property tends to be higher.

As a result, cities have an incentive to build commercial property over residential homes. The result is that the people working in those offices are competing for limited residential space (leading to high prices) and often have to settle for long commutes (leading to gridlock).

Re: High property taxes are good

#108

Post by EddieDante »

dmfdmf wrote: post #97

Property taxes are unconstitutional and immoral. They are an implicit nationalization of all property because there is no way to own property unencumbered. Implicitly the govt owns all the land and charges you rent. The level, high or low, is irrelevant to the principle.

I'm gonna blow your mind right now: the foundation of all law is the government's monopoly on violence. Might makes right. The only "social contract" in force is, "Obey and be protected. Defy us and die."

Re: High property taxes are good

#109

Post by waterlaw »

jpollock wrote: post #96
kashkhan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

property taxes are terrible for old people. you should be able to buy a reasonable amount of land tax free. USA has about 2.5 billion acres. 1/4 acre per person in an average area tax free is reasonable.

Property Taxes aren't terrible for old people. How the mille-rate is set is terrible for old people. A fixed mille-rate results in taxes going up as value goes up. This might be difficult to plan for and manage. However, many cities will simply put a lien on the property and collect when the property is sold/transferred/person dies. However, this isn't necessarily how things need to be done. In New Zealand, the mille…

Cities would stop caring about new residents then (as they've done in Canada.)

They mostly cater to the existing residents that own homes and partake in municipal voting.

They'll stop creating new housing developments and put massive permitting fees on proposals for new construction.

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