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How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

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Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#111

Post by Ambele »

baroffoos wrote: post #64
icsllaf wrote: post #12

I'll never understand how articles like this always talk about Uber and never about public transportation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTrain_JFK#Ridership >The AirTrain's ridership has risen each year since then. In 2017, there were 7,655,901 passengers who paid to travel between JFK Airport and either Howard Beach or Jamaica. This represents a 292% increase over 2004, the first full year of operation, when 2,62…

It seems that to Americans, public transport is unthinkable and the mere suggestion that it could be a solution is met with shock and horror since the only public transport they have ever known is the American kind with useless timetables and primarily used as homeless housing.

The timetables could be deemphasized if you could see the public transportation moving live on a map. The homeless housing aspect could be reduced if a phone or app was required for the upscale public transport.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#112

Post by Digory »

andrewmunsell wrote: post #21
sp332 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your self-driving car going to take up less space or something?

The idea is that a self-driving car rarely has to park, it can simply drive around for your entire 8-hour work day after dropping you off. Or, maybe provide some ride-sharing services instead to be more useful and profitable.

Cars by Bird, Sedans by Lime.

It seems less promising, now that I see the piles of scooters in downtowns.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#113

Post by yardie »

qiqitori wrote: post #63
yardie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> parking lots -- even on land worth $10M+ -- often pay property taxes as little as $100-$1000 a year (thanks to Prop 13). Commercial property is also exempt under Prop 13?! What a screwed up system. I kind of understand if it applies to primary residences. I think it's ridiculous it also applies to commercial property as well.

I don't get property taxes. Why make people pay taxes on land they already paid a bunch of money for?

That's actually a very good question. There are still places in the US you can buy unincorporated land. The taxes on those properties are none to so low it is nonexistent. To live on it ends up costing you more though. There is no electricity, no roads, no schools, no police, no fire protection, no water and no water treatment. Mail you'll need to pick up at the post office in the closest town. They don't deliver if they have no roads to drive on.

This setup works for a very small percentage of the population. If you want an access road to your property you'll need to purchase the right of way from neighbors. And you'll have to live with the fact that the land you bought might not ever sell. As a primary property it's going to be extremely hard to get financing for any improvements so most of these properties are relegated to a cabin in the woods, vacation home.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#114

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

dawnerd wrote: post #85
thaumasiotes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is also the reason you see single family homes with front and back yards like 1000 meters away from sky scrapers in Los Angeles and San Jose. Those homes are paying property taxes of like $400 a year, and most of them are being rented out. It's not poor old ladies living in them that don't want to leave the neighborhood they lived their whole lives in, but gentrified under their feet into some urban monster. I…

Oregon has a similar issue as well. You’ve got houses that are really old yet worth half a mil plus and they’re paying basically nothing. Except here the tax isn’t recalculated on sale so newer homes are not “worth” as much at resell time.

Wait. Are you saying in Oregon, if you built a house in 1910 for $3k, and you sold it in 1940, 1970, 1990, 2007, and 2019 -- it's still being assessed at the 1910 value? That can be right, can it?!

That would mean I could buy an old house for $800k, and pay like $30 in property tax a year? I don't believe it.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#115

Post by dawnerd »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #114
dawnerd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oregon has a similar issue as well. You’ve got houses that are really old yet worth half a mil plus and they’re paying basically nothing. Except here the tax isn’t recalculated on sale so newer homes are not “worth” as much at resell time.

Wait. Are you saying in Oregon, if you built a house in 1910 for $3k, and you sold it in 1940, 1970, 1990, 2007, and 2019 -- it's still being assessed at the 1910 value? That can be right, can it?! That would mean I could buy an old house for $800k, and pay like $30 in property tax a year? I don't believe it.

It's a little more complicated than that. The maximum assessed value can only go up 3% a year. (There's sometimes other taxes that end up on top, assuming the 3% isn't reached). The only time it can be re-calculated is if you do a fairly large renovation - which lad led to contractors figuring out how to make sure renovations don't trigger it.

If you go to Zillow, find some older homes then look at the tax history you'll be amazed.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#116

Post by andys627 »

badpun wrote: post #96
andys627 wrote: post #15

I like this billboard from the good old days https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Ev... . It says: "Everybody works but the vacant lot. I paid $3,600 for this lot and will hold till I get $6000. The profit is unearned increment made possible by the presence of this community and enterprise of its people. I take the profit without earning it." These lots produce negative externalities to society a…

If it was 100% guaranteed that the lot will be worth $6000 in a couple of years, it wouldn't be sold at $3600, but something much closer to $6000. The gentleman buying the lot is obviously taking on risk - the lot may very well never be worth $6000, or may even never again be worth $3600.

I don't disagree that they should be compensated. It is not the only moving part, however, and those should be priced in as well.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#117

Post by yonran »

sokoloff wrote: post #101
jumpingmice wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so stupid. I've never met a real estate concern that had ANY employees. The fact that a building is owned by 1 guy who outsources everything does not make it a "small business".

How do you define small business such that it excludes a one-person renting a house/apartment operation?

All residential property is already exempt from the split roll initiative (unfortunately), so residential landlords don’t need to claim the small business exemption. As for nonresidential property, if the split roll initiative passes, every single commercial landowner will want to classify themselves as a small business to get the exemption from reappraisal (unfortunately), so I imagine that this will be fairly contentious. As the initiative is written, a small business must (1) occupy the property, (3)(A) employ some real estate in California (but not necessarily the property in question?!)

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#118

Post by turk73 »

dawnerd wrote: post #85
thaumasiotes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is also the reason you see single family homes with front and back yards like 1000 meters away from sky scrapers in Los Angeles and San Jose. Those homes are paying property taxes of like $400 a year, and most of them are being rented out. It's not poor old ladies living in them that don't want to leave the neighborhood they lived their whole lives in, but gentrified under their feet into some urban monster. I…

Oregon has a similar issue as well. You’ve got houses that are really old yet worth half a mil plus and they’re paying basically nothing. Except here the tax isn’t recalculated on sale so newer homes are not “worth” as much at resell time.

That's how all the tax increases got passed by voters--the existing homeowners weren't affected. It's the same reason every city has such huge taxes on rental cars.

We need to stop these taxing monsters, not yell about private property.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#119

Post by baroffoos »

Ambele wrote: post #111
baroffoos wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that to Americans, public transport is unthinkable and the mere suggestion that it could be a solution is met with shock and horror since the only public transport they have ever known is the American kind with useless timetables and primarily used as homeless housing.

The timetables could be deemphasized if you could see the public transportation moving live on a map. The homeless housing aspect could be reduced if a phone or app was required for the upscale public transport.

>reduced if a phone or app was required

No thanks. I don't want government mandated spyware on my phone. Its shocking that your solution is to try and ban poor people from public transport rather than providing them a proper place to stay.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#120

Post by jedberg »

yonran wrote: post #117
sokoloff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define small business such that it excludes a one-person renting a house/apartment operation?

All residential property is already exempt from the split roll initiative (unfortunately), so residential landlords don’t need to claim the small business exemption. As for nonresidential property, if the split roll initiative passes, every single commercial landowner will want to classify themselves as a small business to get the exemption from reappraisal (unfortunately), so I imagine that this will be fairly conte…

> and (C) own some real estate in California (but not necessarily the property in question?!)

I think that's a protection against the business owning a Trust that owns the land. It's to force the business to own the land directly.

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