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Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

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Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#421

Post by rcpt »

gopalv wrote: post #118
nine_k wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This being Texas, I suppose Austin has fewer restrictions on new development, so housing prices may be less crazy. To say nothing of taxes, which leave more of your wages to pay the rent.

> which leave more of your wages to pay the rent. Austin has crazy property taxes in comparison to CA, which is where they get you. 2.5% tax rate evaluated for the property prices annually, so retiring on a fixed income in Austin is a tiny bit harder than in CA (that's the real goal of Prop 13). Income taxes are easier to think about, because it goes to zero when your income drops, but property taxes based on the unr…

That's not the "real goal" of Prop 13. California low income seniors have the California Tax Postponment Program which allows them to defer taxes until death if they wish.

Prop 13 was a "tax revolt" passed because greedy angry landowners wanted revenge on the state for taxing them.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#422

Post by scoofy »

bgentry wrote: post #411
scoofy wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic in Austin is insane. Legit insane. Definitely comparable to the Bay Area if not worse. And there is absolutely no transit alternative comparable to BART. There is a morning and evening train, but it's really only effective if you live and work exactly on the stops.

I lived in CA my whole life, including the last 10 years in the Bay Area, before moving to Austin a year ago. I can’t for the life of me understand what you’re talking about. I-35 is bad, that’s about it. The freeways around the rest of Austin are still moving even around rush hour. None of those hold a candle to the Bay Bridge on a Friday afternoon, not even remotely close to as bad.

The reason is that there is no alternative. You'd be a fool to take the Bay Bridge on a Friday afternoon. BART is there, and any sensible person would take it. In Austin, when traffic is fucked, you're just fucked, especially if you have to cross the river.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#423

Post by kshacker »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #244
asdff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median home price in austin is nearly 600k and in California its 800k, so its not as dramatic as a million cheaper unless you are considering places like the hollywood hills where homes go for north of $1.4m minimum (although you can get a home elsewhere in the LA area for $750k in many parts, this is a relatively high water mark)

>Median home price in austin is nearly 600k and in California its 800k, Compare Austin to somewhere near Freemont or compare TX to CA. Comparing Austin to all of CA is more than a little dishonest since there's a lot of rural nowheres in CA to drag down the average price but the comparison exludes all of Texas's rural nowheres.

Absolutely. I am a Californian, and when I see my family talking about the houses they bought in Texas, and yes maybe that was a decade back, and I compare them to an equivalent house in Cupertino (there are none maybe, and I am not that familiar with Fremont but I think it is the same range, just 10% lower worst case), the price difference has to be a million at least, could be more.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#424

Post by plorkyeran »

jtsiskin wrote: post #368
darawk wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. CA will still try to tax those shares if and when he decides to liquidate them. However, Musk does not ever need to liquidate any shares. If he never wants to pay any tax, all he has to do is buy a hedge against the shares (thereby locking in a particular price) and take out loans against the now hedged asset. And like magic, he's got all the cash he could ever need and zero capital gains.

…but how does he pay back those loans?

His estate pays them back when he dies. Inherited shares have their cost basis reset to the current value, so if his heirs sell them immediately there's no capital gains to be taxed.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#425

Post by rcpt »

thephyber wrote: post #183
gopalv wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which leave more of your wages to pay the rent. Austin has crazy property taxes in comparison to CA, which is where they get you. 2.5% tax rate evaluated for the property prices annually, so retiring on a fixed income in Austin is a tiny bit harder than in CA (that's the real goal of Prop 13). Income taxes are easier to think about, because it goes to zero when your income drops, but property taxes based on the unr…

> the superior option for an owner Agree with you, but I would guess most of the Gigafactory workers who haven’t exercised stock options probably can’t afford to own in the Bay Area. While Prop 13 probably filters down to renters in reduced rent, the supply/demand issues for housing is still pretty out of whack even with all of the new units in Milpitas. Also Prop 13 has second order effects that keep older empty nes…

> Prop 13 probably filters down to renters in reduced rent

It doesn't.

Rent is set by the market. New and old landlords have drastically different tax rates but charge roughly the same rent. Same deal with gas stations: you can't figure out how much property tax they're paying based on the price at the pump.

In fact one of the main reasons California has rent control is that Howard Jarvis promised renters that landlords would be nice and pass along the cuts. Of course this was a lie and in the early 80s cities lashed out with rent control in response.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#426

Post by more_corn »

pvarangot wrote: post #158
etchalon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.

I talked to several Tesla and former Tesla folks that will probably relocate because of this, and the say is that since Austin in less NIMBY than the Bay Area new housing will get built and prices will go down. It's a more complex bet than just "we move there because houses are affordable now".

That's funny. Yesterday on Marketplace there was a piece about the city of Austin trying to build a $300k low income home in an empty lot in a rich neighborhood. The neighbors freaked out and sued to stop it. It is now a half finished foundation buried in weeds. Sounds pretty NIMBY to me.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#427

Post by adventured »

C19is20 wrote: post #396
etchalon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.

As a europerson: what are the crime statistics per place? Is there a heyjackass.com equivalent for the two 'areas'?

Scroll down to the section on crime data for each city (not far down the page):

https://www.city-data.com/city/Austin-Texas.html

https://www.city-data.com/city/San-Francisco-California.html

Austin typically has a far lower murder rate than SF (usually 1/2 to 1/3 the rate of SF looking over the prior decade). Austin is usually well below the US national murder rate, which is rare for a major US city. Austin has a dramatically lower robbery rate vs SF. They're similar on assaults. Austin is higher by 50% on rapes. SF is a lot higher on thefts. They're similar on burglaries.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#428

Post by thebradbain »

dexterdog wrote: post #390
mullingitover wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be careful about directly comparing prices, real estate taxes (by rate) in Texas are significantly higher than in California. They might be overall lower given that the real estate prices are cheaper, but Texas is #6 in the country for real estate taxes while California is #34[1]. [1] https://taxfoundation.org/high-state-property-taxes-2021/

But California makes up for it with other taxes where Texas does not.

Like most things, it depends: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-19/wait-c...

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#429

Post by rcpt »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #126
danhak wrote: post #34

California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend. High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed value…

The exodus has been soundly proven to be a myth. [1] But assuming it isn't, there aren't many better places to go. Texas is a joke. Traffic is worse than LA in the major cities and it is run by Christian zealots. Yeah maybe you pay fewer taxes but the other quality-of-life tradeoffs aren't worth it. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/California-exodus-is-ju...

California has exploded to the world's 5th largest economy. Surpassing even the UK.

Zero growth isn't the right baseline. The fact that the population hasn't boomed means something is definitely wrong.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#430

Post by option »

sjg007 wrote: post #131
newhotelowner wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The exodus will only pick up steam unless policymakers get their act together. I used to live in California. There is no better state than California. If house price falls, I would buy another house in California.

I concur. If you can’t get a house though and have to live in crappy apartments California can suck.

climate and natural beauty hard to match. Everything else sucks
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