111–120 of 620 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"They can also hand it down to their family, entrenching wealth for generations." Not any more.
Yes, but this (obviously) doesn't mean this housing is more affordable. It's not. Sure the razor is less but the blades (i.e., taxes) count as well. Both come out of the same pocket, so to speak.
Housing prices are a function of affordability, and that is the collective sum of all associated payments, not just mortgage.
So while we're on the topic, this is why the "college loan debt means more people can't afford to buy" logic (?) doesn't work. Eliminate that debt and prices will go up. Why? Simple! Because the market can bear higher prices.
Roughly the same can be said for raising the minimum wage. Eventually, housing will eat that up as well. It just takes longer because leases are one-year cycles (and perhaps other local rent-increase limits).
What we need is more supply. The only way to truly lower prices is to increase supply. Anything else is smoke & mirrors.
Land value taxes are even better. Property taxes provide a disincentive to making the land more productive. A land value tax would incentivize residential landowners to build more units which provides more supply and would lower rents.
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.
I don't see how that's relevant, not all land is equally well suited for housing, especially among the elderly who are likely to need some sort of living assistance and regular access to healthcare.
property taxes are terrible for old people. you should be able to buy a reasonable amount of land tax free.
I think something like California's Prop 13 that puts a cap on property tax increases is a better idea -- but it should only apply to owner occupied primary residences, not second homes or investment properties.
This community is deranged. All forms of taxation are messed up, the funds end up in grifters pockets, funding wars, or in black holes. The last place I want my money is in a politicians pocket. But this community overwhelmingly supports this concept. If a slave is taxed at 100% and an indentured servant is taxed at 20% - what does that make you?
You might enjoy Somalia.
1. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/San-Francisco-drug-ov...
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…
There's a reasonable and holistic argument to be made for the generalized version of your position, but specifically wanting people to be removed from their homes by forces they can't control under the rationale, "fuck 'em", is counterproductive and - I don't think it's uncalled for to say - immoral. It's important to have a base level of humanity for people, regardless of what side of which broken social dynamic the…
Land value taxes are even better. Property taxes provide a disincentive to making the land more productive. A land value tax would incentivize residential landowners to build more units which provides more supply and would lower rents.
> A land value tax would incentivize residential landowners to build more units which provides more supply and would lower rents Zoning usually dictates what's allowed and is indifferent to tax rates
(Property taxes are a real problem where I live; we're an upper-middle-class enclave directly adjacent to the roughest part of Chicago, and affordability issues prevent people in Chicago from moving across the border to get our services. In the world we actually live in, annexing the Village I live in would make more public policy sense than raising property taxes, which gives you a sense of how clumsy those taxes are as an intervention.)
High property taxes are only “good” in this stupid system that we have to reduce speculation. But what would really be good is if we could stop using housing as investments that drive the prices of homes higher via inflationary mechanisms so that the prices of homes remain more stable over longer periods of time. Which is exactly how a lot of other countries housing markets work. In a better system, property taxes sh…
Housing only becomes a good investment if supply is sufficiently limited such that demand can't be met. NIMBYism and decades of artificially low interest rates are mostly to blame here, although I agree that in the short-term, penalties on speculation can help keep costs in line.
> In a better system, property taxes should be relegated to the dustbin because it turns property ownership into property leasing which is antithetical to the idea of private property.
I disagree 100%. Protecting property costs money, and the government is in charge of protecting your property rights. It seems perfectly reasonable that you should have to pay a fee proportional to the value of the property as an "insurance" against its loss.