221–230 of 620 posts
The prices are like that due to the labor market and that we've been a blue collar city for the longest time.
But what do Chicagoans get from their high property taxes that New Yorkers don't get with their low property taxes? Services seem about similar in both places to me(though, there is a huge swath I don't have experience with, like services for the poor or school services).
If we're going to pick a means of collecting the same amount, encouraging good use of land and discouraging excess consumption seem like nice side effects.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because 90 year old grandpa can't move as easily as us youngins and it's not his fault that the neighborhood gentrified around him. At this point he can't afford to the taxes on a studio either. But anyway, the process of moving is really pretty tough at that age, even the logistics of finding a new apartment and hiring movers. Now, you move out to the suburbs because you can't afford the city anymore, but you don't…
First, grandpa will have to move eventually. 90 year olds in Ukraine got caught up in a war they had nothing to do with and had to move. Second, if the neighborhood gentrified around grandpa, his house value has gone up - he can sell at a good profit and use the money for his retirement as he wishes. Third - consider the counterfactual renter who was living in the same place and working just like grandpa, but had to…
I don't think this is a good example of why all grandpas will have to move eventually. We're not in a world war, at least not officially, and certainly not at all points in history.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax > Property taxes discourage construction, maintenance, and repair because taxes increase with improvements. LVT is not based on how land is used. From https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax... > The problem is that the land tax component of a traditional property tax is too small to deter land speculation. Although property taxes vary from place…
Land value tax discourages holding vacant or under-built property, at the expense of lowering the cost of the land. This means existing homeowners won’t be able to sell their old homes for as much as they could if fewer surrounding properties are developed (more modern, better built, larger, with more units), because their old home is closer to being worth the raw value of the land.
If you want to sell a $50,000 home for $500,000 because it sits on land that grew from being worth $10,000 to $450,000, then a LVT is terrible for you: you need to put in actual work improving your property rather than just sitting on a decrepit old building and selling it for a profit. The problem in the US is that the voters who mostly own their home can’t stomach their home value decreasing: that reduces their paper wealth as well as their ability to take out loans and second mortgages for things like college or car payments. So politically it’s a hard solution to push for (even if, on net, it would help the community be stronger).
But what do Chicagoans get from their high property taxes that New Yorkers don't get with their low property taxes? Services seem about similar in both places to me(though, there is a huge swath I don't have experience with, like services for the poor or school services).
The tax burden is similar (maybe slightly lower in NY), but collected through different means. NYC has a city income tax, Chicago doesn't. If we're going to pick a means of collecting the same amount, encouraging good use of land and discouraging excess consumption seem like nice side effects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Land value taxes are even better. Property taxes provide a disincentive to making the land more productive. I could get on board with this if cost to build and demolish were considered. We have a lot of SFHs that don't make sense to turn into town homes yet because the value of the home on property + demolition costs + cost to build new townhomes on property is greater than what those townhomes could sell for. More…
That seems like the point, though - the land tax makes it so that it is productive to add more density. We want people to demolish that SFH and turn it into a townhome because we need more housing, so that's a feature of the tax, not a bug.
It will still force density eventually as the home's structure value depreciates (demo costs are the same no matter how much the home is worth). Any new structures will be pushed into higher value uses.
BUT let's say we instituted a blind land value tax tomorrow: many people would be forced out of their homes AND could not sell the home for what it was worth: a buyer would still have to either live in the house and pay the higher land value tax or tear down the structure and build something more profitable...the haircut they would otherwise have to take in either case would be reflected in just paying less for the house in the first place (assuming they've done their homework).
This could even happen after the land tax is implemented. That the land value rises above the point of its use but below the point of where the land could be re-developed into the higher value use case. Then....you are kind of stuck in a bad spot until your situation changes or you go bankrupt.
We actually already see this in the market: land with a tear down will cost less than land that is completely clear. The costs to develop are just less in the latter case. Also, people are forced by the construction market to settle for less valuable structures on high value land because there is just a shortage of material and talent to redevelop everything that we want redeveloped already.
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I live in a town like this. 'Roads' are actually reciprocal easements to allow all other land owners to pass. Each lot has water well and septic, though one group of houses has a large shared water system which pools the individual well permits. Electricity and gas and internet are private companies using an easement. Police and fire can easily be funded by sales tax, just like the public transit. Alternatively, land…
Probably don't have bears in the area: https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
Something like, if 10 or 20-year US Treasury bond pays more than you'd make being a landlord and you expect little to zero asset appreciation, then there is no incentive getting into real estate.
And it's possible to discourage house flipping by introducing some sort of friction. Like a high tax of some sort that is applied only if you sell sooner than X number of years (let's say 5)