91–100 of 170 posts
More Housing is no solution. That's compounding the issue at hand. Lower Property taxes plus value adjustments for areas based on median income could help ensure you don't price residents out of their areas and ensure healthy participation in the rest of the economy.
How so?
> value adjustments for areas based on median income
What do you mean value adjustments?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The alternative is that we basically force people out of houses they've bought by gouging them with taxes. I would argue that being able to afford a place in the 1970s does not endow one with an inalienable right to remain there forever. Locking the property taxes creates an artificial incentive to hold onto property forever, thus creating market stagnation.
I honestly think it has less to do with money than the younger HN community realizes. Older people don't like change, especially significant changes like moving. Most of the people who have been here for decades stay because it's their home and they have no where else to go. Getting rid of Prop 13 and raising taxes to tech market rate is the equivalent of deporting someone from their home.
The correct solution to address both the problem of growing property taxes (due to growing land values) and the housing shortage is to zone the lots to encourage growth, as promoted by Strong Towns (https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/12/the-power-of-g...), not to give a special tax break to long-time homeowners at the expense of renters and new homeowners. This would enable homeowners to pay the higher taxes without being displaced as well as serve more households.
> In recent years, younger, less-educated and lower-income folks have led the exodus from the state ... Or in other words, Republicans [1] 1. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/06/study-finds-republica...
https://www.kunr.org/post/californians-move-are-turning-neva...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/460155-texas-republica...
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/08/29/21615...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more palatable argument is that it would create incentives to keep housing prices stable, rather than expecting a lifetime skyrocketing windfall at everyone else's expense.
The counter argument is: If a widowed elderly woman lives in a 900 sqft home bought in 1963, how is it her fault that the world went crazy and values it at $1,200,000+ today? Have you seen a 1963 house? They’re a fire hazard not worth 1.2M.. And yet, you want her owe tax on that crazy value, yet she is stuck with a static retirement income? Where should she go? Idaho? I’m for increasing tax on income earners, but not…
Proposition 13 does not target widowed elderly women; it only benefits property owners regardless of whether they are widowed elderly women. For example, widowed elderly renters are harmed instead of helped. If we wanted an entitlement for low-income and elderly people, we should have made one that targeted these groups instead of the one that only incidentally helps low-income people (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-1912.ZD.html)
> In recent years, younger, less-educated and lower-income folks have led the exodus from the state ... Or in other words, Republicans [1] 1. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/06/study-finds-republica...
But other reports show leaving Californians turning their destination states more "blue". https://www.kunr.org/post/californians-move-are-turning-neva... https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/460155-texas-republica... https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/08/29/21615...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know that it's more "unfair" to the younger generations to not increase property taxes than it would be to the home owners to do so. Why would someone who bought a house for 100k be expected to pay taxes on 2M years later? A lot of these people probably had normal jobs and incomes, they didn't chose for Google/Apple/Facebook to move into town and send the property prices sky high. Yes, they benefit as owners…
> The alternative is that we basically force people out of houses they've bought by gouging them with taxes. That seems much more unfair than the alternative. Oh no! People with a multiple millions in assets have to choose between paying taxes on their immense wealth or selling it! Sarcasm aside, this is how it's done most places in the US. It works just fine in those places and isn't considered unfair. Why is paying…
If I buy a painting from a young, unknown artist for $100, for example, and 30 years later the artist is well known and that painting could be sold for $1 million, we don't make me pay taxes on the $999900 my wealth has increased due to owning the painting.
Instead, we keep track of what I paid for the painting, and when I eventually do sell it and so the wealth represented by the painting gets converted into money we tax me on the gain then.
Offhand, real estate is about the only thing I can think of where you can own something, and because someone else would be willing to buy it for a lot more than you paid, you have to pay taxes based on that much higher amount.
Why should real estate wealth be treated different than other forms of wealth?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know that it's more "unfair" to the younger generations to not increase property taxes than it would be to the home owners to do so. Why would someone who bought a house for 100k be expected to pay taxes on 2M years later? A lot of these people probably had normal jobs and incomes, they didn't chose for Google/Apple/Facebook to move into town and send the property prices sky high. Yes, they benefit as owners…
> I don't know that it's more "unfair" to the younger generations to not increase property taxes than it would be to the home owners to do so. Why would someone who bought a house for 100k be expected to pay taxes on 2M years later? A lot of these people probably had normal jobs and incomes, they didn't chose for Google/Apple/Facebook to move into town and send the property prices sky high. Yes, they benefit as owner…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they have a house and ~$1.9M in free equity. The younger generation doesn't have that opportunity. If they can't afford the property tax they can downsize easily. It's not easy for young people to afford $2M houses, especially when paying high state income taxes to make up for the lack of sufficient property taxes.
The younger generation can do the same thing the older generation did and buy a house in a cheaper real estate market. It's funny that people feel entitled to buy a house in the most expensive place on earth. I think a lot of the people who bought houses for 100k in California in the 1970s would not have expected to buy a condo at the same time on 5th Ave in Manhattan (for instance). It's a recent phenomena that youn…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The alternative is that we basically force people out of houses they've bought by gouging them with taxes. That seems much more unfair than the alternative. Oh no! People with a multiple millions in assets have to choose between paying taxes on their immense wealth or selling it! Sarcasm aside, this is how it's done most places in the US. It works just fine in those places and isn't considered unfair. Why is paying…
> Why is paying taxes on your wealth considered unreasonable here? If I buy a painting from a young, unknown artist for $100, for example, and 30 years later the artist is well known and that painting could be sold for $1 million, we don't make me pay taxes on the $999900 my wealth has increased due to owning the painting. Instead, we keep track of what I paid for the painting, and when I eventually do sell it and so…
It's in the general interest of society to ensure that land is economically productive because it's central to a great many other aspects of life. This is generally intended to be reasonably in line with what its potential is. This also really isn't true of a bond or painting.
My answer is that real estate wealth is qualitatively different in ways both important and relevant from other forms of wealth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would someone who bought a house for 100k be expected to pay taxes on 2M years later? Well why would someone who bought a 2M house today be expected to pay taxes on it? Because the community has a lot of expenses - fire fighters and police will protect their valuable asset, the school system needs to pay its teachers to live somewhere in the vicinity of this expensive neighborhood, the lawmakers (who these home…
A question I have here is are we asking for people to pay taxes on the value of the home because it is at some dollar amount, or are we asking to pay taxes for the cost of services? If my modest home (really it’s modest) doubled in value, I’m not using “double the services”. Why would my property taxes increase? What if it’s an entire neighborhood? Maybe salaries go up for firefighters and teachers... ok? What if the…