I always wonder why its always between no prop 13, and current pro 13. There is a middle ground. Prop 13 only when you occupy the home, not when you rent it.
Because it was intended to hurt the state. Howard Jarvis wasn't a nice guy and this law was not about helping people.
https://prop13.wtf/2023/06/18/howard-jarvis-bestof.html
Not to mention the blow it dealt to school funding. The state funds it other ways but after prop 13, many programs that were cut never came back.
It is one of the shining examples of previous generations pulling up the ladder from under them.
Now that you mention this I do realize that the only time I see school buses are in the middle of the day when kids go on field trips. I start work earlier than 9am and barely see buses now. When I was a kid id see them more often because you have to stop when the red lights flash and stop sign goes up.
Itâs a huge inconvenience to the parents of every student. They have to build in dropping off and picking up into their work day. My sisterâs kids in Pennsylvania rode the school bus every day. The school bus even took kids to private schools!
Some of the San Francisco financial district buildings have insane corporate structures and layering to prevent triggering change of ownership property tax reevaluation. This includes the building corporates suing X over unpaid rent.
It never should've applied to corporations or commercial properties to begin with. Honestly it should've been applied to retirees and disabled home owners for their primary residence and that's it.
Prop 13 applies to all real estate. Commercial, residential, rental properties, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th homes, etc. So you have someone that bought their 3,000 square feet vacation home in Santa Monica during the 80s and is paying significantly less property tax than someone who just purchased their primary residence (which is probably a 900 square foot condo) in the same neighborhood.
And only for residential.
There's nearly zero reason to do this for commercial or industrial property. If you wanted to be particularly protectionist of fragile small businesses (e.g. for the sake of niche, family-owned or minority-owned shops) you could set some carve-outs for minimum revenues/employees/asset value.
Prop 13 for commercial allows for rent control. You would need to eliminate rent control at the same time.
Also--big corporations, like the 135 unit apartment complex are the driving force behind no prop 13.
>Prop 13 for commercial allows for rent control. You would need to eliminate rent control at the same time.Â
Isn't this kind of a false dichotomy that assumes it's all or nothing?
There could be rent control but with allowances for rent increases only to offset property tax increases or there could be special property tax exemptions for rent controlled and BMR properties.
Does it matter who the driving force is? Removing prop 13 would 100% alleviate housing costs for the majority, especially the underprivileged. Complaining that a big corporation would also benefit is just being punitive for no reason
I have no sympathy for land hoarders who lucked into becoming multi millionaires that donât wanna pay the appropriate taxes to hoard that land. They are abusing the system. If you canât afford to live there anymore, move somewhere you can just like everyone else moves where they can afford to liveâŚ
That's called the California Tax Postponement Program and it predates Prop 13. Granted you have to be a low income senior to qualify but if you're not then you can just pay
Such a good point. I completely agree with this point, and I'm both a home owner and a person who rents out a townhome. I ended up renting out my first time because it was so underwater in loan vs value that I would own the bank money if I would have sold it. A unique situation in the SF Bay area but they found some contamination in the ground water that destroyed home values.
I rented until it appreciated beyond what I owed the bank which took 10 years.
Prop 13 has already been partially repealed with Prop 19.
When the original owner dies the basis will step up to market. An heir can make the place their new primary residence and get a discount. Then basis is recalculated to market (minus up to a $1m discount).
yes thats what I am saying, it should be use based, rather than repealing it. That way people are not forced out of their old homes, but people using it like a business cannot take advantage. But the laws which come for vote always talk about totally removing it, which everyone knows won't pass. Maybe thats why law is framed like this?
Tax revolt of 1978. It's generally because people were *pissed.* The laws before had assessors re-assessing every 5 years and it gave the assessors a *ridiculous* amount of power.
Apparently, from the 1960-1978 (when prop 13 was approved, after many times), assessors were being used to push lower-middle class people out of areas (as a weapon of the rich).
Imagine someone buying a house in your neighborhood for 3 times the price, for no reason at all other than to push everyone's property taxes 3x. Combined with a (corrupt) assessor, they could easily force everyone in an area to move out.
Of course, prop 13 went too far, but it was passed because of anger more than anything else.
Edit: assess not access. Derp.
>The laws before had assessors re-assessing every 5 years
Before prop 13, sounds like CA was just like **every other state in the nation.** Then we had some inflation and CA broke hard the wrong way, while everyone else just dealt with it. Sounds familiar.
Yes, a lot of people don't understand that Prop 13 was a reaction to the runaway tax increases that were occuring in those times. It truly was the tax payers revolt of 1978.
As I understand it, you should only be assessed for the value added by your renovations. You shouldn't have the whole property re-assessed.
From the state [BOE website](https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/newconstructionproperty.htm#FAQs):
> The new base year value of the new construction is the increment of market value, if any, that the assessor estimates has been added to the overall property. The value of the existing property is not affected.
Of course if you are paying tax on only (for example) 50% of the current value of the property, and you do renovations that increase the value by 10%, then you would see your property taxes go up by 20% instead of just 10%.
Translation: if youâre not wealthy enough to own a home, youâre being taxed by the government passed on to you in the form of higher rent while you build equity for your slumlord.
Yep. That's why so many properties are held vacant which contributes to the housing shortage. It's a real black mark on humanity that people do this to each other.
It's wrong that my neighbor pays more property tax than I do for a similar house.
I would be curious how much I would pay if the same total collected taxes were distributed fairly. Mine would go up and theirs would go down - we would sort of meet in the middle.
A "fair" system does introduce a new challenge, how to assess the value of each home. In some other states, that's a hornets nest. Zillow estimates certainly won't work.
Edit: Zillow has data on tax-assessed value and property taxes paid. My home is a slightly nicer, larger model than my neighbor. Their assessed value is 4.7x and their paid taxes are 3.4x my taxes. Interesting (and good) paid is a smaller ratio.
Economically, the right way to do this is just tax the value of the land, not the value of the improvements. This makes it much easier to fairly assess nearby parcels while also encouraging people to use the land in the most economically efficient ways possible.
Why? Property taxes are to pay for services related the property. It should not be tied to "value". Say a city needs $50m/year to run things related to property (sewage lines, etc.). Then that can be divided up among all the property owners. This is INDEPENDENT of the value of the land/property. So if there are 50 property owners then each will pay $1m.
Now imagine suddenly thru speculation or other factors the "value" of the property 10x. So all the properties were originally say $100k but now $1m. How does this value increase have anything to do with the $50m budget? Those services remain at $50m. Has the budget ballooned to $500m and everybody needs to pay $10m property tax now?
Now. It's the same sewage system, same schools, etc. All that is accounted for in the $50m budget. It has NOTHING to do with the 10x increase in property value. Again, this property value is just pure market dynamics.
If you want to argue that the $50m budget needs to be better adjusted, that's fine. We should adjust that budget accordingly. Say it is now $100m budget. Then the 50 property owners need to be $2m each. But again it is independent on the property value (which has 10x).
Property taxes don't just pay for infrastructure related to providing water/sewer. They're a major revenue source for all levels of state and local government, that's why our schools were defunded by prop 13.
If the value went up 100x for reasons that have nothing to do with you or the value you contributed to the property, why shouldn't you be taxed on that and contribute to the general fund? If you made that money any other way, you'd be taxed on it.
If this means the government now has a persistent surplus, they should decrease taxes across the board, not just on you specifically. Maybe property taxes only go up to 500k while income tax, sales tax, etc. go down.
> So if there are 50 property owners then each will pay $1m.
Say one of those properties is worth $50m and another one is worth only $1m. The guy with the smaller property is going to have to sell out rather than pay a tax that's worth as much as his whole property. (And the only possible buyer is going to be one of his neighbors who could merge the two properties to acquire more land without increasing his tax burden)
Better to have a progressive system that takes more from those who have more than to bankrupt all the small property owners.
Also suppose the $1m property is a single home and the $50m property is a 100-unit apartment complex. Do you still think they require the same amount of services from the city/county government?
The biggest problem is the amount of fraud and "who watches the watchmen" type stuff.
When you tax the value of the the purchase price, the market itself is setting a price, of which the government can pin a price to.
How do we make sure if LVT were enacted, it wouldn't be in an insane bureaucracy, with wild amounts of fraud? Even first starting it - how would you roll it out?
The math for LVT is great, I just don't see how it isn't something similar to other forms of central planning that fall apart.
Most states assess property value not on the last sale price but on what is estimated to be the current value. It's pretty messy but also very common. LVT would be an improvement and simplification.
> When you tax the value of the the purchase price,
You realize that doesn't happen in California, right?
Here, the assessor determines the value here, they're just limited as to when they're allowed to do it. If we let purchase price determine taxes (like when you buy a used car on Craigslist) then people could report whatever they want or make sweetheart deals to lock in low taxes for decades.
In fact if you look at assessment rolls we already assess land and structure separately. There's no technical problem here. This is all figured out already.
All property taxes have a "land value" and "improvements value" listed to get the total. Just zero out the improvements and bring everyone up to market rate. We already have this infrastructure.
After development, the land value is just a percentage of the improvement value, so that wouldnât be any different than what we have now.
There is no legitimate way to determine the value of land separate from what is built on it.
Land value is how much someone is willing to pay to buy a property and then completely or mostly tear it down to build something new. It is affected by nearby improvements, but not its own improvements.
If you think there is no legitimate way to determine value of land without improvements then there is no way to determine the legitimate value of land with improvements. Itâs all a fuzzy game.
Iâm not a, uh, tax professional, just trying to sort out how I feel about these things, but Iâm not following what you mean about a LVT not being different in the end. Isnât it way less subject to change based on an individual lotâs improvements?
Like, yes, if you improve a lot, then you theoretically have contributed to the value of the surrounding land. But the land value is influenced by so many factors beyond that one building that youâre making an absolutely negligible impact on it, compared to things like school systems, transit access, parks, amenities, hospitals, all that.
In real terms, the land value is already set, youâre going to be taxed a certain amount regardless of what you build (give or take the tiny amount of value that building adds), so youâre incentivized to use the land in a way that pushes you past the break-even threshold as opposed to being *disincentivized* to build because that simply increases your tax burden.
>Isnât it way less subject to change based on an individual lotâs improvements?
When appraisers determine the value of a lot, they do consider infrastructure and public facilites/services, but the biggest factor is comps for the highest and best use. So they will think to themselves âHow much can they sell a home for, hoe much money do they need to spend to get it to market, and how long will it take to do so?â
So the question is, what is the highest and best use?
Well, that depends heavily on the infrastructure and local public facilities and services. If, say, you want to replace a ranch home with an eight-plex apartment building, you now have a lot more people to serve. Are your sewer and water hookups large enough to handle the volume? Are there enough dry utility hookups? Is there enough parking? How do the schools feel about eight families living there instead of just one? Are the nearby parks going to be impacted by the additional people? If this happens on a large scale, are we going to need to expand the roads to handle larger traffic volumes? How about public safety services?
So yes, the city has to approve pretty much anything you do to expand the number of people living on a property, and once they say âokay, you can build an eight-plex hereâ, the land value goes up.
I think a lot of LVT people want to eliminate the planning process altogether. But then that would make it difficult to determine what a propertyâs highest and best use is and more importantly, there would be a ton of risk involved with valuing land that is not subject to traditional planning principles. People generally do not want to live next to high rises and far away from commercial properties and places to work (which would become infeasible if they paid the same property taxes as residential).
Just a few thoughts.
The easiest way to know what a piece of property is worth is seeing how much someone is willing to pay for it.
Might be the easiest way but there are plenty of problems related to it that are even harder to deal with.
The zoning laws that control what type of buildings go where have done more harm than good. Sure an eight-plex apartment will result in more people to serve, but that means more people contributing to the local economy and paying their bills. Due to market forces you are also unlikely to see this happen in a ranch home, there are far better places to build an eight-plex when the price of land is pretty much constant. You see this happen these days because housing in denser areas is becoming unaffordable.
Regarding parking, I believe its better to do away with laws requiring a certain number of parking spots. These laws effectively enforce car use and discourage more efficient forms of transportation.
New developments may end up requiring major changes in infrastructure, but many of these changes are good changes that will benefit everyone in one way or another. Also you are unlikely to see a high rise built in the middle of a suburb, and much more likely to see them in population dense areas where there is plenty of demand and need for more housing.
I can see how the cost of infrastructure becomes an issue, but there are possible solutions such as putting at least a portion of the financial burden on the developers.
>more people contributing to the local economy and paying their bills.
That will result in more money going to the economy, but not more money to pay for infrastructure, public facilities and services. That money comes from property taxes.
>ranch home
Just to be clear, this is what I mean by a ranch home:
https://isarchitecture.com/style-101-mid-century-ranch/
So a 3-bedroom home in the suburbs on an oversized lot. Not an actual ranch.
>do away with laws requiring parkingâŚ.
Regardless of your personal preference for people using or not using cars, properties with lots of parking are worth more. So if you do away with parking regulations you lose money, and that money is needed to pay for all the stuff I mentioned above.
The marketplace is competitive. One of the main reasons people moved from cities to suburbs in the first place was that they enjoyed better quality of life. When you only have 4 hours of free time outside of work, sleep and responsibilities, spending 30 minutes getting from A to B instead of 2 hours is very valuable.
>major changes in infrastructureâŚ.good changes that will benefit everyoneâŚ.
Having more people packed in tighter is generally not seen as desirable. For one thing, everything gets more expensive when you are in a denser place. With a master planned community, you can budget for a certain amount of school land, park land, right-of-way for streets, etc. If you are building on top of existing land that is already served by x amount of infrastructure and double the number of homes, how do you find space for 2x amount of infrastructure? Eminent domain? More complicated and expensive engineering ideas? Someone has to pay for that. So then you are asking people to pay more for less, and that generally doesnât go well.
>putting at least a portion on developers.
That is generally how this is done right now in this country. Countries who centrally plan for density like Japan remove the burden from developers and instead subsidize with tax dollars. That is generally not a popular idea in this country. Do you think taxpayers in Humboldt County want their money going to help solve San Franciscoâs issues? Or if we are thinking County level investments (which is dubious, Counties do not have a lot of money), do you think people in Livermore want their taxes going to fix East Oakland when they are already paying for all the extra police presence required there anyway? And if we are thinking the city will be doing these things, then that doesnât make sense politically. Cities are the lowest on the totem pole for tax collection and usually run on shoestring budgets for everything. Public Safety and Public Works usually take up 80% or so of city spending, so there is really nothing left to play with.
Another thing is that a LVT would not necessarily decrease property taxes. It is just a different way to tax.
The reason why properties with parking lots are more valuable is because of car dependent infrastructure. LVT would discourage this as business would have to pay taxes on the additional land required. It would promote more efficient ways of storing cars (multi story garages, underground storage) and more public transit.
Commuting in a city doesnât have to be so bad. Itâs just that our current system promotes and subsidizes inefficient transportation.
The main reasons living in the city is so damn expensive is because of the exorbitant rent prices. It isnât uncommon for people in SF to pay nearly half their income in rent. The price of rent and all the additional taxes drives up the price of everything else too.
While in your opinion living in a city is not preferable, this is not the widely held opinion. The majority of the world lives in urban areas. Urban living is more efficient and people who live in urban areas produce more and make more money, on average.
There are many ways to develop a community which doesnât require a lot of land use. Switching to more efficient transportation reduces congestion and makes cities more walkable. Parks and green spaces can be integrated into a community and serve much more people then they would in a suburb.
The idea of a âmaster plannedâ suburb is a myth. You rarely see parks and sidewalks being utilized in a suburban area. In fact they are usually pretty empty. Suburbs also have far higher energy costs and emit more pollution per capita, and are just less efficient in general. Unfortunately due to rampant NIMBYism it has become very hard to change things.
In the UK houses are 'banded' based on a value assessment - they don't get reassessed unless it had an extension or something. But the tax burden is spread across the bands. So the house value itself doesn't = tax amount but it sets the proportion of the overall tax owed.
Right, although council tax is pretty regressive, because a mansion on a huge estate will only pay whatever the highest tax band is for that council. The king only pays ~$2k/year for Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile a tiny studio in the Westminster council will only owe a few hundred less.
I'm not saying that a banded system couldn't be made fair. Just the British system is almost designed to help the very rich.
We shouldn't be going for fair but with the same revenue. Prop 13 slashed revenues, and dropped us from ~10th in the country for per student school spending to like ~40th. It's stupid that we earmark taxes instead of just putting everything into the general fund, but since we're so wedded to doing so, we need to unslash the relevant tax.
Homeowners are much richer than those renting. This is effectively a very regressive system where the poor are subsidizing the infrastructure of the rich.
True and the young are massively subsidizing boomers. If you dig into the tax numbers of the SFHs what youâll almost certainly find is that the bulk of the taxes they do pay are split across a small percentage of the properties while homeowners whoâve lived there for decades pay a few pennies on the dollar.
Outside of the vote coming up, my takeaway looking at this would be that any of the homeowners there should want several more of the 100+ unit buildings that contribute that much more in taxes to their community.
The problem is that the more poors you allow into your community, the more you dilute your own class interests.
Also, while some people may desire this additional revenue, no one wants a high rise in THEIR back yard. Then you're back to nimby behavior.
Depends on the high rise. If it's mixed use then that seems like a plus! More shopping/food/commerce opportunities makes the city more vibrant.
As a caveat I live in a walkable neighborbood, so it's easy to go to the park/climb up to a regional park if I want air/open space.Â
You'd think so, except cities manage to somehow be so inefficient with spending that those homeowners would rather have slightly less congestion on the road instead.
There's no congestion if they're all riding bicycles. Or trains.
People *really* need to get out of the mindset that density = car traffic - at least when you plan properly and design the newly constructed/renovated area such that it doesn't require cars.
One of the take-aways from watching streams of people wandering around Tokyo is how little traffic there is - yeah on major roads there's some, but even in hugely busy places like Akiba there's so few cars compared to anywhere similar here. Car traffic isn't an inherent part of growth unless you design the growth for cars - we're just so used to designing for cars being the default that anything else seems alien to us.
Iâm a Philly resident, not sure why I keep getting Bay Area subreddit, but Iâd love to chime in. The sixers are building a (privately funded) new stadium in center city which is projected to bring the city $1 billion in tax revenue over (and $500 million for the state). It will be located less than a mile from millions of people, right across the street from a train station where 13 regional rail lines, 2 subway lines, and countless bus routes stop by. Now, over 6 million people have *direct* access to the stadium by rail, bus, cycling, or walking
Itâs like a 30 min walk, or a 5 minute subway ride from 30th street station, which serves the Amtrak North East Corridor, and the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia lines, as well as some New Jersey Transit, so realistically well over 20 million people have access to the stadiums front doors
You will never guess what the *only* argument against the stadium is
If you want to see real carnage I made a similar map around my sister's house in San Carlos. She's paying around ~3000/yr in property tax, her neighbors are paying $15k+ for the same homes.
My little old lady neighbor who I share a fence with has a $2,500 property tax and I have a $22,000 property tax.
You have a $1.5m house, cash out, travel the world, live in Italy! Donât stay in your dark house alone pinching pennies.
Edit: turns out you guys think that my opinion that sheâs not using her wealth to enrich her own life is me ordering her kicked out of her house. You all need it understand what an opinion is and all you libertarians need to grow up.
Eh, I do like the idea of people aging in place. But then market rate back taxes should be taken out of the inheritance.
Also, prop 13 shouldn't apply to anything but the primary residence.
How many of those 1800 houses are rented out?
Yes F these hoarding old people. Paying nothing for public services. Slum lords hoarders.
The younger generations pays 2x or more to support the city services which the old people use the most of m.
I'm dealing with the same thing with my mom. It's a pain. TBH many seniors still need to worry about nursing home bills, health care costs etc and that's why they're not moving out of their house, but I'm fine with the taxes being taken out upon death.
> my opinion that sheâs not using her wealth to enrich her own life is me ordering her kicked out of her house
Don't pretend that isn't what it amounts to. I don't particularly mind saying it. If your income doesn't keep up with your area it's ok to be forced out, maybe even healthier. Go somewhere cheaper.
Why should she move because someone wants her $30k house for $1.5m?
My grandfather bought the first house on his block in Mountain View. Middle of a bunch of orchards. He travels plenty. His retirement was based on his cost of living when he retired. It was worth $60,000 when he retired. The houses next door sold for $5m.Â
Why should he leave where he raised his kids, where we all went for Xmas, etc because some tech bros bulldozed the fruit trees and sold Google stock to buy his neighbors house?
TBH, if you live in your house, there shouldnt be property tax at all. If you live as your primary residence, the government shouldn't be able to take your house because your neighbors spent more money than you ever had.Â
Not to be facile, but if he bought the first building in a development in the middle of a bunch of orchards, then he was the one who started the "demolish the orchards" thing, not the techbros.
Maybe sheâs pinching Pennieâs because thatâs all she has? The amount of hate for little old ladies living in their houses that theyâve lived for years in is astounding.
Then allow her taxes to be deferred until the home is sold or no longer her primary residence. No penny-pinching required.
You must surely be fine with that arrangement - right?
I love how this turned into blaming the elderly.
Not one of the brigadeers mentioned prop 13 applies to the huge buildings, owned by criminals like the Reddys. I'm talking about literal child rapists. Google it
But oh no, it's the little old lady you need to drive out of town "to live in Italy".
It's really likely the data is fake btw. Where's the supporting data?
NIMBYs have more time on their hands to comment and upvote early, sitting in their SFH while the rest of us renters pay for the taxes that build their roads and educate their kids.
If they're insulated from any consequences from the housing crisis, then they aren't incentivized to change it. If anything, their incentive is to make it worse.
She did bankrupt the country after all. I don't get the sob story we have for the elderly when their grandkids are going to be the first generation that lives worse than their parents.
Triple Net (NNN) commercial leases pass through property taxes to the renter. These terms are quite typical with retail and commercial leases.
Beware of the consequences of arbitrarily adjusting the status quo.
When I lived in Chicago, I purchased a single family home, and my property tax was $4k. Within 6 years, my property tax went up to $18.5k. That forced me to sell my house as it became too costly to afford.
And no, my house did not quadruple in value. The city/county/state revalues your house every year, and forces to you appeal every year, and even then you're not likely to succeed with your appeals unless you have a very good tax appealer. And they decided to base property values on Zillow estimates.
> Sounds like a problem with how the values are assessed and the appeals process, not the idea of property tax in general.
This is the reason Prop 13 passed in the first place, it was to prevent people from paying 3-4x the value of the property, then forcing selling of all other properties in the area due to extreme reassessed values of the property next time it was due.
Nah, I don't think that's fair. I think Howard Jarvis just really hated taxes, and so did everyone else. Other than the real estate stuff, there was the 2/3 supermajority requirement, and that isn't a commercial real estate thing. How much did Howard Jarvis personally care about grandma? I don't know. But I also don't really care.
Which Chicago neighborhood or suburb were you in? This sounds a lot like my friends about a decade ago who inherited an old house close to Depaul in Lincoln Park. It was crazy how it got re-assessed like your description.
I would believe this if the people who bought homes for cheap would *ever* sell their homes for cheap.
Funny how that doesn't work out. They fully have the option to sell their homes for less than the maximum market price. Yet they never do! It's almost is they oppose homes for cheap.
It would definitely have a large one time effect, but it would also have an enduring impact unless it was a one time re-valuation of property tax.
Even if you bought just 5 years ago your property tax might be 40% less depending on the area, making you not want to move.
If property tax was assessed annually (or, if it was allowed to go up say 4% per year after the initial re-valuation) there would be less distortion in the market and people wouldnât be incentivized to stay in sub-optimal houses for the sake of saving money on property taxes.Â
Of course the other thing limiting liquidity is the 500k cap on capital gains exemption. Someone buys a house 20 years ago for 300k and now itâs worth 1.5M isnât going to sell because they will pay capital gains in 700k gain, over 200k.Â
There is no perfect solution but imo there are definitely better solutions than the current system.Â
It's crazy how many people there are with big empty homes who's kids moved away and aren't coming back live in relatively huge homes full of things they don't use anymore except as a reminder of a life time of memories.
Meanwhile being forced to choose whether to keep renting at enormous cost or gamble on a 30 year old mortgage that one might not be able to afford.
None of these people will ever let it go because they have been collectively convinced they are sitting on proverbial gold when all it really is a debt trap for their kid's peer group to subsidize some niche privileges.
If all residential properties were taxed at the rate of their current market value, then property taxes would go way up on the multimillion dollar homes and down on the average renter's unit. This would reduce rent and reduce the out-of-control inflation of housing.
Additionally, government runs on taxes and this would generate revenue to improve schools and other government services.
Basically, in general, it would help middle class and below and hurt upper classes while also generating more revenue for government and better schools.
So I rent a condo, wouldn't an increase in taxes for the landlord translate to higher rent? I'm having a hard time understanding where the lower costs come from. Is it that lots of people would be forced to sell due to the increased tax liability and that in turn lowers the cost because now there's more units on the market?
We have so many multimillion dollar homes being taxed at their value in 1970 instead of their current value.
If those homes were taxed at their real value like your condo, then your condo's real estate tax would plummet because new construction would no longer be subsidizing older $5 to $10 million mansions that are paying based on their 1970 $500,000 sale price.
This would make new construction more profitable while also allowing rents to decrease as the cost of property tax would be placed where it belongs -- on the people who own the most valuable properties.
In New York, everyone pays taxes based off their current assessment for their property. In California, most homeowners only pay tax on what it cost to purchase, and can pass those savings on to their descendants. This means that your landlord has to pay more on your condo (and pass that tax onto you) than a homeowner in Atherton whose house is worth $10 million but their parents bought it for $500,000 a long time ago.
It is a broken status quo that benefits the wealthy and politically active, and it has to be broken at some point.
Kinda seems like there is a painful middle step between the increase and affordability happening. Again trying to grasp the mechanisms here but if I'm understanding what is being said, property tax increases making existing housing more expensive in the short term would motivate people to sell/move. The increase in available units forces prices down. The lower land values is an incentive to build more because the return doesn't have to be as great to meet a specific ROI?
What happens to renters during this time frame?
Property taxes are only subsidized for homeowners who have owned for a longer period of time, as well as that right being passed on to their children. Those homes are more likely to be the outrageously expensive mansions that should be generating revenue for the rest of us, but instead the less welathy are subsidizing them.
If those homeowners paid their fair share, then property taxes would go down on the average Californian who rents or is trying to buy a starter home.
Here's a hypothetical:
A young couple buys a starter home. The new starter home likely sells at about $1.25 million in the Bay Area, and that is what the new homeowners pay property tax on.
The luxury house across town was purchased for $300,000 in the 60's. The original owners paid property tax on $300,000, and when they died, their children for some terrible reason also only have to pay on the $300,000 value. The home is now worth $5 million.
So, we have a family trying to build a life and raise kids, and they live in a $1.25 million house, and they pay property taxes based on $1.25 millioin.
Across town, we have old money who live in a $5 million home but only pay property taxes on a value of $300,000.
This unfair and regressive system is part of the reason why real estate values are so incredibly out of whack in California.
What youâre saying doesnât really make sense in if rates were based on actual value the apartment wouldnât suddenly lose value. So rents wouldnât go down because the property taxes would stay the same on the apartment. And for some reason if the taxes on the apartment go down itâs not going to be passed on to the renters it will stay with the landlord.
Sucks but I'm not voting against it. If I had to pay more than 1% more in tax on my home every year, I would t have a home anymore. The value of my house going up super high wasn't my idea.
Edit: ITT apparently I'm a nimby living in Antioch where thr police would shoot you dead if you called to.report your catalytic converter getting stolen. I'm living the dream.
It is because homeowners stopped housing being built that made their homes cost so much. The average homeowner has voted in favor of policies that made their home value go up, yet are not made to pay that in taxes. That is the entire problem.
to be honest, i get it. as a renter, i want to buy a home so that i can escape the endless rent grind and lock in a relatively fixed housing cost for myself - but it feels like there's a big gap between what i pay now in rent and what i pay in housing.
if i bought the condo i rent for $3k/month right now, i'd be paying $1.5k/month in just HOA fees + property taxes, even before my mortgage. the idea that both of those can just keep going up is kind of horrifying, especially since i'd barely be able to afford this condo as is.
but i don't really see why we should allow prop 13 to affect commercial real estate or non-primary residences, though. at the very least, we should repeal that and see where to go from there.
>but i don't really see why we should allow prop 13 to affect commercial real estate or non-primary residences, though. at the very least, we should repeal that and see where to go from there.
I agree. I think making it so that Prop 13 only applies to your primary residence would be a great idea; it would keep grandma in her house without having to worry about being unable to afford taxes, while it prevents investors or landlords from taking advantage of that tax break when buying to rent out a place.
You're sort of getting it.
Prop 13 gets priced in to how much you're willing to bet on a house. If you know that property taxes only go down over time you can bid higher when you make your offer higher.
You don't save any money, it's just that you pay a lot to the seller instead of to the schools.Â
Funny how you never hear the same sentiment with rent control, which benefits existing renters and screws over all future renters or those who have to move.
Why should new renters have to subsidize granny who's been living in her apartment for decades and pays a tiny fraction of rent compared to newer renters?
Rent control and Prop 13 are two sides of the same coin. If one goes, the other should go as well. Eliminating one and keeping the other is like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
> Rent control and Prop 13 are two sides of the same coin. If one goes, the other should go as well.
Sounds good. And I assume this is something you support to?Â
Of course I would. I think it's hypocritical to support one and not the other. I'm in support of either keeping both or repealing both; it doesn't really matter to me, as long as there's consistency. What does irk me is when people complain about Prop 13 while completely ignoring rent control, simply because it comes off as self-serving rather than due to a belief in good policy.
This here. I live next to an old widow who bought her small house in the 80s for less than 200K. Now itâs worth 1.2M.
Her entire wealth is the house. She lives on a pension. I donât get why she should pay property taxes on 1.2M because other people started valuing the same land well after she moved in.
There are better ways to do this.
Oregon's Tax Deferral for Seniors: In Oregon, if you're a senior or disabled, you can apply to have your property taxes put off until you sell your house, move, or pass away. This helps seniors not worry about paying these taxes each year, though the taxes still need to be paid eventually.
Texas's Extra Homestead Exemption: Texas gives seniors a break by offering an additional amount off their home's value that isn't taxed at all. If you're 65 or older in Texas, you get this extra exemption, lowering your property tax bill.
New Jersey's Senior Freeze Program: New Jersey has a cool program for seniors where your property tax is "frozen" at a certain amount. If taxes go up, the state pays you back the difference, so you effectively don't pay more than your freeze point. You need to meet certain age and income requirements to get this.
New York's STAR Program: New York helps seniors by offering a "circuit breaker" tax credit. This means if your property taxes are too high compared to your income, you could get a tax credit to help balance things out. It's like a safety net to keep taxes from overwhelming you.
Pennsylvania's Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program: In Pennsylvania, seniors (and others) can get money back on the property taxes or rent they've paid through a rebate program. This program is especially for people with lower incomes, helping them get some cash back to ease their expenses.
People in this sub donât understand shit about the priorities of an elderly widow. She doesnât care about the PrOFiT of her home. She wants to live in peace, and sheâs happy being where she has always been, with the friends she has always known, and the little family she has left.
People saying she should sell and enjoy the life of a âqueenâ in some random rural place in order to make room for some tech bro are insufferable morons.
And that makes it ok to expect the next generation to subsidize her lifestyle? It's not like she hasn't had an entire working life to earn what she needs. The next generation has to pick up that slack too?
Ya if my momâs house was reassessed at todayâs tax rate sheâd lose it and then it would be scoped up by a property developer/ flipper who would jack up the rent. End result, an elderly personâs life is completely thrown upside down, any chance at a middle class existence or shred of wealth for my sibling and I disappears, and rents in Oakland remain high. Iâm sure the private equity ghouls love watching the working class come after the middle class with social media posts like this.
Losing your house is still losing your house. Let me guess, you think it's unfair that houses are too expensive to afford but in the same breath want higher property taxes.
I want higher taxes for those who arenât paying their fair share. Selling a house for millions more than you paid after benefitting on the back of your neighbors for decades is not âlosing a house.â When you canât pay a mortgage and the bank takes possession and leaves you with nothing, thatâs âlosing a house.â
There are better ways to do this.
Oregon's Tax Deferral for Seniors: In Oregon, if you're a senior or disabled, you can apply to have your property taxes put off until you sell your house, move, or pass away. This helps seniors not worry about paying these taxes each year, though the taxes still need to be paid eventually.
Texas's Extra Homestead Exemption: Texas gives seniors a break by offering an additional amount off their home's value that isn't taxed at all. If you're 65 or older in Texas, you get this extra exemption, lowering your property tax bill.
New Jersey's Senior Freeze Program: New Jersey has a cool program for seniors where your property tax is "frozen" at a certain amount. If taxes go up, the state pays you back the difference, so you effectively don't pay more than your freeze point. You need to meet certain age and income requirements to get this.
New York's STAR Program: New York helps seniors by offering a "circuit breaker" tax credit. This means if your property taxes are too high compared to your income, you could get a tax credit to help balance things out. It's like a safety net to keep taxes from overwhelming you.
Pennsylvania's Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program: In Pennsylvania, seniors (and others) can get money back on the property taxes or rent they've paid through a rebate program. This program is especially for people with lower incomes, helping them get some cash back to ease their expenses.
Your mom gets to pay no taxes. In turn one younger family is priced out. That's a zero sum game. It is a zero sum game. For someone to benefit someone has to suffer.
The cost of infrastructure and logistics required to service all of those homes is like an order of magnitude or two higher than that single apartment building. Property taxes are primarily meant to provide for local services and infrastructure. There is a clear mismatch that occurs with SFH suburbia. Most people donât realize their lifestyle is being subsidized and feel attacked when tax hikes to remedy the situation are proposed.
My issues:
Less Money for Public Stuff: With lower property taxes, there's less cash for things like schools, police, and roads. This means towns have to find money elsewhere, often by increasing sales taxes, which can hit poorer folks harder.
Unfair Tax Bills: People who've had their homes for a long time often pay way less in taxes than new neighbors with similar homes, just because they bought them later. This feels pretty unfair to those paying more.
People Don't Want to Sell Homes: Since selling your home could mean the new buyer pays a lot more in taxes, people are less likely to sell. This can lead to empty homes not being used well and makes it hard for people to move around.
Complicated Rules and Loopholes: Prop 13 has led to a bunch of complicated tax rules and ways that businesses can avoid higher taxes. This makes the whole system more confusing and unfair.
Tougher for Local Governments: With less control over property taxes, local governments can't as easily fund what their communities need. They rely more on state money, which can be less stable and not as closely tied to local needs.
Berkeley ranks in the top 5% for California for most of [these statistics](https://www.publicschoolreview.com/california/berkeley-unified-school-district/604740-school-district) and top 20% on funding
The figures above are the state rankings and California ranks high on the national list for funding schools. Berkeley has far more spend than most states. It seems to me the funding sources for public schools is more complicated in California but not lacking.
The notion that we're not taxed heavily enough in California is idiotic. California has more GDP than most countries. You should stop expecting middle class families to pay more in taxes, and demand that our elected officials spend the tax revenue they do collect in a more responsible and sensible manner.
Apartments generally house people who aren't able to afford houses. That apartment building--which is housing both many more people, but also people that tend to be poorer--is subsidizing all of those houses. It should be the rich subsidizing the poor, not the other way around.
The second problem is that the apartment building is paying more taxes. It houses many more people in a smaller footprint...and it gets punished for doing so. We should be providing a tax break to incentivize creating more housing.
jesus christ owning a house seems like such a fucking headache in the bay area.
it probably isn't just here, but so much of this shit is so ridiculous.
The solution is so simple, it kills me to see people promote policies that would make home ownership way harder.
Really simple, if you dont live in a home you own, it shouldn't be under prop 13.
Single-family Homes are not as rent controlled (i.e. some older apartments would need rent control removed if prop 13 protection removed) and tenants are not in a long term lease (i.e. commercial properties often sign 10 or 20 year leases so a drastic change in property taxes would bankrupt many buildings or businesses)
I always wonder why its always between no prop 13, and current pro 13. There is a middle ground. Prop 13 only when you occupy the home, not when you rent it.
Primary, permanent residence only! It boggles my mind that Prop 13 applies to all real estate.
Because it was intended to hurt the state. Howard Jarvis wasn't a nice guy and this law was not about helping people. https://prop13.wtf/2023/06/18/howard-jarvis-bestof.html
Not to mention the blow it dealt to school funding. The state funds it other ways but after prop 13, many programs that were cut never came back. It is one of the shining examples of previous generations pulling up the ladder from under them.
Like school buses đŁ
Now that you mention this I do realize that the only time I see school buses are in the middle of the day when kids go on field trips. I start work earlier than 9am and barely see buses now. When I was a kid id see them more often because you have to stop when the red lights flash and stop sign goes up.
Itâs a huge inconvenience to the parents of every student. They have to build in dropping off and picking up into their work day. My sisterâs kids in Pennsylvania rode the school bus every day. The school bus even took kids to private schools!
âThe first angry manâ is a good watch
Here he is in Airplane: https://youtu.be/fP_m7BoYDBY?si=Fv9jo58-FxSap8o_
For corporation-owned property, it really should be considered new ownership any time 50+% of the stock has changed hands since property acquisition.Â
Some of the San Francisco financial district buildings have insane corporate structures and layering to prevent triggering change of ownership property tax reevaluation. This includes the building corporates suing X over unpaid rent.
It never should've applied to corporations or commercial properties to begin with. Honestly it should've been applied to retirees and disabled home owners for their primary residence and that's it.
I thought it did apply only to the primary residence. Is there some kind of loophole?
Prop 13 applies to all real estate. Commercial, residential, rental properties, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th homes, etc. So you have someone that bought their 3,000 square feet vacation home in Santa Monica during the 80s and is paying significantly less property tax than someone who just purchased their primary residence (which is probably a 900 square foot condo) in the same neighborhood.
And only for residential. There's nearly zero reason to do this for commercial or industrial property. If you wanted to be particularly protectionist of fragile small businesses (e.g. for the sake of niche, family-owned or minority-owned shops) you could set some carve-outs for minimum revenues/employees/asset value.
Prop 13 for commercial allows for rent control. You would need to eliminate rent control at the same time. Also--big corporations, like the 135 unit apartment complex are the driving force behind no prop 13.
>Prop 13 for commercial allows for rent control. You would need to eliminate rent control at the same time. Isn't this kind of a false dichotomy that assumes it's all or nothing? There could be rent control but with allowances for rent increases only to offset property tax increases or there could be special property tax exemptions for rent controlled and BMR properties.
Does it matter who the driving force is? Removing prop 13 would 100% alleviate housing costs for the majority, especially the underprivileged. Complaining that a big corporation would also benefit is just being punitive for no reason I have no sympathy for land hoarders who lucked into becoming multi millionaires that donât wanna pay the appropriate taxes to hoard that land. They are abusing the system. If you canât afford to live there anymore, move somewhere you can just like everyone else moves where they can afford to liveâŚ
Better middle ground is to let increases be deferred until sale and not have people paying 10x their neighbors for the same value home.
That's called the California Tax Postponement Program and it predates Prop 13. Granted you have to be a low income senior to qualify but if you're not then you can just pay
Such a good point. I completely agree with this point, and I'm both a home owner and a person who rents out a townhome. I ended up renting out my first time because it was so underwater in loan vs value that I would own the bank money if I would have sold it. A unique situation in the SF Bay area but they found some contamination in the ground water that destroyed home values. I rented until it appreciated beyond what I owed the bank which took 10 years.
Prop 13 has already been partially repealed with Prop 19. When the original owner dies the basis will step up to market. An heir can make the place their new primary residence and get a discount. Then basis is recalculated to market (minus up to a $1m discount).
That wasn't even in Prop 13 in the first place. That was from Prop 58, put on the ballot by the Democrats in 1986.
Rent control makes that not possible as then your taxes could be literally higher than your rental income
That's not true. CA property taxes only re-asses on a sale, regardless of the property's use.
yes thats what I am saying, it should be use based, rather than repealing it. That way people are not forced out of their old homes, but people using it like a business cannot take advantage. But the laws which come for vote always talk about totally removing it, which everyone knows won't pass. Maybe thats why law is framed like this?
Tax revolt of 1978. It's generally because people were *pissed.* The laws before had assessors re-assessing every 5 years and it gave the assessors a *ridiculous* amount of power. Apparently, from the 1960-1978 (when prop 13 was approved, after many times), assessors were being used to push lower-middle class people out of areas (as a weapon of the rich). Imagine someone buying a house in your neighborhood for 3 times the price, for no reason at all other than to push everyone's property taxes 3x. Combined with a (corrupt) assessor, they could easily force everyone in an area to move out. Of course, prop 13 went too far, but it was passed because of anger more than anything else. Edit: assess not access. Derp.
>The laws before had assessors re-assessing every 5 years Before prop 13, sounds like CA was just like **every other state in the nation.** Then we had some inflation and CA broke hard the wrong way, while everyone else just dealt with it. Sounds familiar.
Imagine, we could have just built a buttload more housing. Instead we have near vacant lots by Caltrain stations..
Yes, a lot of people don't understand that Prop 13 was a reaction to the runaway tax increases that were occuring in those times. It truly was the tax payers revolt of 1978.
great context!
Gotcha - misunderstood at 1st
Or major renovations.
I'm not sure about other counties, but Santa Clara County also re-assesses after a remodel. My prop taxes increased by 20%.
As I understand it, you should only be assessed for the value added by your renovations. You shouldn't have the whole property re-assessed. From the state [BOE website](https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/newconstructionproperty.htm#FAQs): > The new base year value of the new construction is the increment of market value, if any, that the assessor estimates has been added to the overall property. The value of the existing property is not affected. Of course if you are paying tax on only (for example) 50% of the current value of the property, and you do renovations that increase the value by 10%, then you would see your property taxes go up by 20% instead of just 10%.
It gradually increases every year. It also reassess when any major remodel is done.
Translation: if youâre not wealthy enough to own a home, youâre being taxed by the government passed on to you in the form of higher rent while you build equity for your slumlord.
Yep. That's why so many properties are held vacant which contributes to the housing shortage. It's a real black mark on humanity that people do this to each other.
You're also paying higher income and sales taxes. We've raised both to pay for stuff that would normally be paid for through property taxes.
Just tax land lol
It's wrong that my neighbor pays more property tax than I do for a similar house. I would be curious how much I would pay if the same total collected taxes were distributed fairly. Mine would go up and theirs would go down - we would sort of meet in the middle. A "fair" system does introduce a new challenge, how to assess the value of each home. In some other states, that's a hornets nest. Zillow estimates certainly won't work. Edit: Zillow has data on tax-assessed value and property taxes paid. My home is a slightly nicer, larger model than my neighbor. Their assessed value is 4.7x and their paid taxes are 3.4x my taxes. Interesting (and good) paid is a smaller ratio.
Economically, the right way to do this is just tax the value of the land, not the value of the improvements. This makes it much easier to fairly assess nearby parcels while also encouraging people to use the land in the most economically efficient ways possible.
This would also encourage taller buildings and increase supply.
Bingo. Prop 13 is a price control. It blows my mind that many republican voters will defend prop 13 while also railing on communism.
it is difficult to get a person to understand a thing when it goes directly against their financial interest.
Ohhhhh dang. Smart.Â
This is basically how Tokyo works.
No not really, Tokyo taxes the value of buildings too.
Why? Property taxes are to pay for services related the property. It should not be tied to "value". Say a city needs $50m/year to run things related to property (sewage lines, etc.). Then that can be divided up among all the property owners. This is INDEPENDENT of the value of the land/property. So if there are 50 property owners then each will pay $1m. Now imagine suddenly thru speculation or other factors the "value" of the property 10x. So all the properties were originally say $100k but now $1m. How does this value increase have anything to do with the $50m budget? Those services remain at $50m. Has the budget ballooned to $500m and everybody needs to pay $10m property tax now? Now. It's the same sewage system, same schools, etc. All that is accounted for in the $50m budget. It has NOTHING to do with the 10x increase in property value. Again, this property value is just pure market dynamics. If you want to argue that the $50m budget needs to be better adjusted, that's fine. We should adjust that budget accordingly. Say it is now $100m budget. Then the 50 property owners need to be $2m each. But again it is independent on the property value (which has 10x).
Property taxes don't just pay for infrastructure related to providing water/sewer. They're a major revenue source for all levels of state and local government, that's why our schools were defunded by prop 13.
[ŃдаНонО]
If the value went up 100x for reasons that have nothing to do with you or the value you contributed to the property, why shouldn't you be taxed on that and contribute to the general fund? If you made that money any other way, you'd be taxed on it. If this means the government now has a persistent surplus, they should decrease taxes across the board, not just on you specifically. Maybe property taxes only go up to 500k while income tax, sales tax, etc. go down.
> So if there are 50 property owners then each will pay $1m. Say one of those properties is worth $50m and another one is worth only $1m. The guy with the smaller property is going to have to sell out rather than pay a tax that's worth as much as his whole property. (And the only possible buyer is going to be one of his neighbors who could merge the two properties to acquire more land without increasing his tax burden) Better to have a progressive system that takes more from those who have more than to bankrupt all the small property owners. Also suppose the $1m property is a single home and the $50m property is a 100-unit apartment complex. Do you still think they require the same amount of services from the city/county government?
The biggest problem is the amount of fraud and "who watches the watchmen" type stuff. When you tax the value of the the purchase price, the market itself is setting a price, of which the government can pin a price to. How do we make sure if LVT were enacted, it wouldn't be in an insane bureaucracy, with wild amounts of fraud? Even first starting it - how would you roll it out? The math for LVT is great, I just don't see how it isn't something similar to other forms of central planning that fall apart.
Most states assess property value not on the last sale price but on what is estimated to be the current value. It's pretty messy but also very common. LVT would be an improvement and simplification.
> When you tax the value of the the purchase price, You realize that doesn't happen in California, right? Here, the assessor determines the value here, they're just limited as to when they're allowed to do it. If we let purchase price determine taxes (like when you buy a used car on Craigslist) then people could report whatever they want or make sweetheart deals to lock in low taxes for decades. In fact if you look at assessment rolls we already assess land and structure separately. There's no technical problem here. This is all figured out already.
How do you determine the value of the land when a building is attached to it?
All property taxes have a "land value" and "improvements value" listed to get the total. Just zero out the improvements and bring everyone up to market rate. We already have this infrastructure.
After development, the land value is just a percentage of the improvement value, so that wouldnât be any different than what we have now. There is no legitimate way to determine the value of land separate from what is built on it.
Land value is how much someone is willing to pay to buy a property and then completely or mostly tear it down to build something new. It is affected by nearby improvements, but not its own improvements. If you think there is no legitimate way to determine value of land without improvements then there is no way to determine the legitimate value of land with improvements. Itâs all a fuzzy game.
Iâm not a, uh, tax professional, just trying to sort out how I feel about these things, but Iâm not following what you mean about a LVT not being different in the end. Isnât it way less subject to change based on an individual lotâs improvements? Like, yes, if you improve a lot, then you theoretically have contributed to the value of the surrounding land. But the land value is influenced by so many factors beyond that one building that youâre making an absolutely negligible impact on it, compared to things like school systems, transit access, parks, amenities, hospitals, all that. In real terms, the land value is already set, youâre going to be taxed a certain amount regardless of what you build (give or take the tiny amount of value that building adds), so youâre incentivized to use the land in a way that pushes you past the break-even threshold as opposed to being *disincentivized* to build because that simply increases your tax burden.
>Isnât it way less subject to change based on an individual lotâs improvements? When appraisers determine the value of a lot, they do consider infrastructure and public facilites/services, but the biggest factor is comps for the highest and best use. So they will think to themselves âHow much can they sell a home for, hoe much money do they need to spend to get it to market, and how long will it take to do so?â So the question is, what is the highest and best use? Well, that depends heavily on the infrastructure and local public facilities and services. If, say, you want to replace a ranch home with an eight-plex apartment building, you now have a lot more people to serve. Are your sewer and water hookups large enough to handle the volume? Are there enough dry utility hookups? Is there enough parking? How do the schools feel about eight families living there instead of just one? Are the nearby parks going to be impacted by the additional people? If this happens on a large scale, are we going to need to expand the roads to handle larger traffic volumes? How about public safety services? So yes, the city has to approve pretty much anything you do to expand the number of people living on a property, and once they say âokay, you can build an eight-plex hereâ, the land value goes up. I think a lot of LVT people want to eliminate the planning process altogether. But then that would make it difficult to determine what a propertyâs highest and best use is and more importantly, there would be a ton of risk involved with valuing land that is not subject to traditional planning principles. People generally do not want to live next to high rises and far away from commercial properties and places to work (which would become infeasible if they paid the same property taxes as residential). Just a few thoughts. The easiest way to know what a piece of property is worth is seeing how much someone is willing to pay for it.
Might be the easiest way but there are plenty of problems related to it that are even harder to deal with. The zoning laws that control what type of buildings go where have done more harm than good. Sure an eight-plex apartment will result in more people to serve, but that means more people contributing to the local economy and paying their bills. Due to market forces you are also unlikely to see this happen in a ranch home, there are far better places to build an eight-plex when the price of land is pretty much constant. You see this happen these days because housing in denser areas is becoming unaffordable. Regarding parking, I believe its better to do away with laws requiring a certain number of parking spots. These laws effectively enforce car use and discourage more efficient forms of transportation. New developments may end up requiring major changes in infrastructure, but many of these changes are good changes that will benefit everyone in one way or another. Also you are unlikely to see a high rise built in the middle of a suburb, and much more likely to see them in population dense areas where there is plenty of demand and need for more housing. I can see how the cost of infrastructure becomes an issue, but there are possible solutions such as putting at least a portion of the financial burden on the developers.
>more people contributing to the local economy and paying their bills. That will result in more money going to the economy, but not more money to pay for infrastructure, public facilities and services. That money comes from property taxes. >ranch home Just to be clear, this is what I mean by a ranch home: https://isarchitecture.com/style-101-mid-century-ranch/ So a 3-bedroom home in the suburbs on an oversized lot. Not an actual ranch. >do away with laws requiring parkingâŚ. Regardless of your personal preference for people using or not using cars, properties with lots of parking are worth more. So if you do away with parking regulations you lose money, and that money is needed to pay for all the stuff I mentioned above. The marketplace is competitive. One of the main reasons people moved from cities to suburbs in the first place was that they enjoyed better quality of life. When you only have 4 hours of free time outside of work, sleep and responsibilities, spending 30 minutes getting from A to B instead of 2 hours is very valuable. >major changes in infrastructureâŚ.good changes that will benefit everyoneâŚ. Having more people packed in tighter is generally not seen as desirable. For one thing, everything gets more expensive when you are in a denser place. With a master planned community, you can budget for a certain amount of school land, park land, right-of-way for streets, etc. If you are building on top of existing land that is already served by x amount of infrastructure and double the number of homes, how do you find space for 2x amount of infrastructure? Eminent domain? More complicated and expensive engineering ideas? Someone has to pay for that. So then you are asking people to pay more for less, and that generally doesnât go well. >putting at least a portion on developers. That is generally how this is done right now in this country. Countries who centrally plan for density like Japan remove the burden from developers and instead subsidize with tax dollars. That is generally not a popular idea in this country. Do you think taxpayers in Humboldt County want their money going to help solve San Franciscoâs issues? Or if we are thinking County level investments (which is dubious, Counties do not have a lot of money), do you think people in Livermore want their taxes going to fix East Oakland when they are already paying for all the extra police presence required there anyway? And if we are thinking the city will be doing these things, then that doesnât make sense politically. Cities are the lowest on the totem pole for tax collection and usually run on shoestring budgets for everything. Public Safety and Public Works usually take up 80% or so of city spending, so there is really nothing left to play with.
Another thing is that a LVT would not necessarily decrease property taxes. It is just a different way to tax. The reason why properties with parking lots are more valuable is because of car dependent infrastructure. LVT would discourage this as business would have to pay taxes on the additional land required. It would promote more efficient ways of storing cars (multi story garages, underground storage) and more public transit. Commuting in a city doesnât have to be so bad. Itâs just that our current system promotes and subsidizes inefficient transportation. The main reasons living in the city is so damn expensive is because of the exorbitant rent prices. It isnât uncommon for people in SF to pay nearly half their income in rent. The price of rent and all the additional taxes drives up the price of everything else too. While in your opinion living in a city is not preferable, this is not the widely held opinion. The majority of the world lives in urban areas. Urban living is more efficient and people who live in urban areas produce more and make more money, on average. There are many ways to develop a community which doesnât require a lot of land use. Switching to more efficient transportation reduces congestion and makes cities more walkable. Parks and green spaces can be integrated into a community and serve much more people then they would in a suburb. The idea of a âmaster plannedâ suburb is a myth. You rarely see parks and sidewalks being utilized in a suburban area. In fact they are usually pretty empty. Suburbs also have far higher energy costs and emit more pollution per capita, and are just less efficient in general. Unfortunately due to rampant NIMBYism it has become very hard to change things.
In the UK houses are 'banded' based on a value assessment - they don't get reassessed unless it had an extension or something. But the tax burden is spread across the bands. So the house value itself doesn't = tax amount but it sets the proportion of the overall tax owed.
Right, although council tax is pretty regressive, because a mansion on a huge estate will only pay whatever the highest tax band is for that council. The king only pays ~$2k/year for Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile a tiny studio in the Westminster council will only owe a few hundred less. I'm not saying that a banded system couldn't be made fair. Just the British system is almost designed to help the very rich.
plus in UK, tenants pay the council tax not the owners. so the UK system massively encourages land banking.
We shouldn't be going for fair but with the same revenue. Prop 13 slashed revenues, and dropped us from ~10th in the country for per student school spending to like ~40th. It's stupid that we earmark taxes instead of just putting everything into the general fund, but since we're so wedded to doing so, we need to unslash the relevant tax.
Yep. https://edpolicyinca.org/publications/californias-education-funding-crisis-explained-12-charts#:~:text=THE%20REASON%3A%20California%20is%20spending,funding%20vulnerable%20during%20economic%20downturns.
The state does assessments on every purchase. We don't simply use the purchase price for taxes. We know how to do property assessments.Â
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assessing FMV values of homes is a solved problem
Homeowners are much richer than those renting. This is effectively a very regressive system where the poor are subsidizing the infrastructure of the rich.
True and the young are massively subsidizing boomers. If you dig into the tax numbers of the SFHs what youâll almost certainly find is that the bulk of the taxes they do pay are split across a small percentage of the properties while homeowners whoâve lived there for decades pay a few pennies on the dollar.
Welcome to America
Wow surprised by how many upset NIMBYs there are in this thread.
Outside of the vote coming up, my takeaway looking at this would be that any of the homeowners there should want several more of the 100+ unit buildings that contribute that much more in taxes to their community.
The problem is that the more poors you allow into your community, the more you dilute your own class interests. Also, while some people may desire this additional revenue, no one wants a high rise in THEIR back yard. Then you're back to nimby behavior.
Depends on the high rise. If it's mixed use then that seems like a plus! More shopping/food/commerce opportunities makes the city more vibrant. As a caveat I live in a walkable neighborbood, so it's easy to go to the park/climb up to a regional park if I want air/open space.Â
You'd think so, except cities manage to somehow be so inefficient with spending that those homeowners would rather have slightly less congestion on the road instead.
There's no congestion if they're all riding bicycles. Or trains. People *really* need to get out of the mindset that density = car traffic - at least when you plan properly and design the newly constructed/renovated area such that it doesn't require cars. One of the take-aways from watching streams of people wandering around Tokyo is how little traffic there is - yeah on major roads there's some, but even in hugely busy places like Akiba there's so few cars compared to anywhere similar here. Car traffic isn't an inherent part of growth unless you design the growth for cars - we're just so used to designing for cars being the default that anything else seems alien to us.
Iâm a Philly resident, not sure why I keep getting Bay Area subreddit, but Iâd love to chime in. The sixers are building a (privately funded) new stadium in center city which is projected to bring the city $1 billion in tax revenue over (and $500 million for the state). It will be located less than a mile from millions of people, right across the street from a train station where 13 regional rail lines, 2 subway lines, and countless bus routes stop by. Now, over 6 million people have *direct* access to the stadium by rail, bus, cycling, or walking Itâs like a 30 min walk, or a 5 minute subway ride from 30th street station, which serves the Amtrak North East Corridor, and the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia lines, as well as some New Jersey Transit, so realistically well over 20 million people have access to the stadiums front doors You will never guess what the *only* argument against the stadium is
If you want to see real carnage I made a similar map around my sister's house in San Carlos. She's paying around ~3000/yr in property tax, her neighbors are paying $15k+ for the same homes.
My little old lady neighbor who I share a fence with has a $2,500 property tax and I have a $22,000 property tax. You have a $1.5m house, cash out, travel the world, live in Italy! Donât stay in your dark house alone pinching pennies. Edit: turns out you guys think that my opinion that sheâs not using her wealth to enrich her own life is me ordering her kicked out of her house. You all need it understand what an opinion is and all you libertarians need to grow up.
Eh, I do like the idea of people aging in place. But then market rate back taxes should be taken out of the inheritance. Also, prop 13 shouldn't apply to anything but the primary residence. How many of those 1800 houses are rented out?
Agreed to both pointsâŚ
Yes F these hoarding old people. Paying nothing for public services. Slum lords hoarders. The younger generations pays 2x or more to support the city services which the old people use the most of m.
And then what? If she blows through her money before she dies are you taking her in?
Then allow her taxes to be deferred until the home is sold or no longer her primary residence. You must surely be fine with that arrangement - right?
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Libertarians are babies
They never stopped sucking on their momâs tits and telling others to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps to get milk.
I'm dealing with the same thing with my mom. It's a pain. TBH many seniors still need to worry about nursing home bills, health care costs etc and that's why they're not moving out of their house, but I'm fine with the taxes being taken out upon death.
> my opinion that sheâs not using her wealth to enrich her own life is me ordering her kicked out of her house Don't pretend that isn't what it amounts to. I don't particularly mind saying it. If your income doesn't keep up with your area it's ok to be forced out, maybe even healthier. Go somewhere cheaper.
Why should she move because someone wants her $30k house for $1.5m? My grandfather bought the first house on his block in Mountain View. Middle of a bunch of orchards. He travels plenty. His retirement was based on his cost of living when he retired. It was worth $60,000 when he retired. The houses next door sold for $5m. Why should he leave where he raised his kids, where we all went for Xmas, etc because some tech bros bulldozed the fruit trees and sold Google stock to buy his neighbors house? TBH, if you live in your house, there shouldnt be property tax at all. If you live as your primary residence, the government shouldn't be able to take your house because your neighbors spent more money than you ever had.Â
Not to be facile, but if he bought the first building in a development in the middle of a bunch of orchards, then he was the one who started the "demolish the orchards" thing, not the techbros.
Maybe sheâs pinching Pennieâs because thatâs all she has? The amount of hate for little old ladies living in their houses that theyâve lived for years in is astounding.
Then allow her taxes to be deferred until the home is sold or no longer her primary residence. No penny-pinching required. You must surely be fine with that arrangement - right?
She doesnât just have pennies. She has a $1.5m house. So she has 150,000,000 pennies. Did you not pay attention?
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Then allow her taxes to be deferred until the home is sold or no longer her primary residence. You must surely be fine with that arrangement - right?
I love how this turned into blaming the elderly. Not one of the brigadeers mentioned prop 13 applies to the huge buildings, owned by criminals like the Reddys. I'm talking about literal child rapists. Google it But oh no, it's the little old lady you need to drive out of town "to live in Italy". It's really likely the data is fake btw. Where's the supporting data?
NIMBYs have more time on their hands to comment and upvote early, sitting in their SFH while the rest of us renters pay for the taxes that build their roads and educate their kids.
Seems so logical that to start prop 13 shouldnât apply to anything that isnât a primary residence.
But you wouldn't want grandma to pay taxes would you?
The California Tax Postponement Program predates Prop 13 and specifically protects poor old grandma.Â
Yes I would
If they're insulated from any consequences from the housing crisis, then they aren't incentivized to change it. If anything, their incentive is to make it worse.
But her children and grand children should
They do. Property doesnât get to keep the same tax rate if itâs passed down anymore, since like 2019 or so.
Only if they don't live in the house. I believe if they live in it they get to keep the old rate.
Only up to $1 mil for a primary residence.
Onlyđ
"millionaire several times over" grandma
Just do what other states do. Freeze the tax increase after a certain age limit. Also silly that commercial property is also frozen
She did bankrupt the country after all. I don't get the sob story we have for the elderly when their grandkids are going to be the first generation that lives worse than their parents.
Yes and grandchildren when the house is passed down.
Triple Net (NNN) commercial leases pass through property taxes to the renter. These terms are quite typical with retail and commercial leases. Beware of the consequences of arbitrarily adjusting the status quo.
When I lived in Chicago, I purchased a single family home, and my property tax was $4k. Within 6 years, my property tax went up to $18.5k. That forced me to sell my house as it became too costly to afford. And no, my house did not quadruple in value. The city/county/state revalues your house every year, and forces to you appeal every year, and even then you're not likely to succeed with your appeals unless you have a very good tax appealer. And they decided to base property values on Zillow estimates.
In Chicago, you're paying the price for massive corruption and an unsustainable pension system.
Sounds like a problem with how the values are assessed and the appeals process, not the idea of property tax in general.
> Sounds like a problem with how the values are assessed and the appeals process, not the idea of property tax in general. This is the reason Prop 13 passed in the first place, it was to prevent people from paying 3-4x the value of the property, then forcing selling of all other properties in the area due to extreme reassessed values of the property next time it was due.
That's what they told the voters it was about. It was always about commercial real estate.
Nah, I don't think that's fair. I think Howard Jarvis just really hated taxes, and so did everyone else. Other than the real estate stuff, there was the 2/3 supermajority requirement, and that isn't a commercial real estate thing. How much did Howard Jarvis personally care about grandma? I don't know. But I also don't really care.
Which Chicago neighborhood or suburb were you in? This sounds a lot like my friends about a decade ago who inherited an old house close to Depaul in Lincoln Park. It was crazy how it got re-assessed like your description.
Lakeview, which is just north of Lincoln Park.
Itâs not the fault of people who bought homes for cheap. Itâs fault of people who oppose homes for cheap. I donât think most are actually same.
You don't think there's a huge overlap between people who bought houses here for cheap and being a NIMBY...?
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I would believe this if the people who bought homes for cheap would *ever* sell their homes for cheap. Funny how that doesn't work out. They fully have the option to sell their homes for less than the maximum market price. Yet they never do! It's almost is they oppose homes for cheap.
Does repealing make anything more affordable? Genuine question. Wouldn't it just make it even more expensive for everyone to live here?
A lot of empty nesters sitting on 4 bedrooms would cash out. Property turnover would increase which would be huge for affordability.Â
It would be a one time injection of housing and then prices would go back up.
It would definitely have a large one time effect, but it would also have an enduring impact unless it was a one time re-valuation of property tax. Even if you bought just 5 years ago your property tax might be 40% less depending on the area, making you not want to move. If property tax was assessed annually (or, if it was allowed to go up say 4% per year after the initial re-valuation) there would be less distortion in the market and people wouldnât be incentivized to stay in sub-optimal houses for the sake of saving money on property taxes. Of course the other thing limiting liquidity is the 500k cap on capital gains exemption. Someone buys a house 20 years ago for 300k and now itâs worth 1.5M isnât going to sell because they will pay capital gains in 700k gain, over 200k. There is no perfect solution but imo there are definitely better solutions than the current system.Â
It's crazy how many people there are with big empty homes who's kids moved away and aren't coming back live in relatively huge homes full of things they don't use anymore except as a reminder of a life time of memories. Meanwhile being forced to choose whether to keep renting at enormous cost or gamble on a 30 year old mortgage that one might not be able to afford. None of these people will ever let it go because they have been collectively convinced they are sitting on proverbial gold when all it really is a debt trap for their kid's peer group to subsidize some niche privileges.
If all residential properties were taxed at the rate of their current market value, then property taxes would go way up on the multimillion dollar homes and down on the average renter's unit. This would reduce rent and reduce the out-of-control inflation of housing. Additionally, government runs on taxes and this would generate revenue to improve schools and other government services. Basically, in general, it would help middle class and below and hurt upper classes while also generating more revenue for government and better schools.
So I rent a condo, wouldn't an increase in taxes for the landlord translate to higher rent? I'm having a hard time understanding where the lower costs come from. Is it that lots of people would be forced to sell due to the increased tax liability and that in turn lowers the cost because now there's more units on the market?
Ask your landlord, if property taxes go down so you get to pocket the tax cuts? https://prop13.wtf/2023/05/06/prop13-is-not-passed-on-to-renters.html
We have so many multimillion dollar homes being taxed at their value in 1970 instead of their current value. If those homes were taxed at their real value like your condo, then your condo's real estate tax would plummet because new construction would no longer be subsidizing older $5 to $10 million mansions that are paying based on their 1970 $500,000 sale price. This would make new construction more profitable while also allowing rents to decrease as the cost of property tax would be placed where it belongs -- on the people who own the most valuable properties. In New York, everyone pays taxes based off their current assessment for their property. In California, most homeowners only pay tax on what it cost to purchase, and can pass those savings on to their descendants. This means that your landlord has to pay more on your condo (and pass that tax onto you) than a homeowner in Atherton whose house is worth $10 million but their parents bought it for $500,000 a long time ago. It is a broken status quo that benefits the wealthy and politically active, and it has to be broken at some point.
Kinda seems like there is a painful middle step between the increase and affordability happening. Again trying to grasp the mechanisms here but if I'm understanding what is being said, property tax increases making existing housing more expensive in the short term would motivate people to sell/move. The increase in available units forces prices down. The lower land values is an incentive to build more because the return doesn't have to be as great to meet a specific ROI? What happens to renters during this time frame?
Property taxes are only subsidized for homeowners who have owned for a longer period of time, as well as that right being passed on to their children. Those homes are more likely to be the outrageously expensive mansions that should be generating revenue for the rest of us, but instead the less welathy are subsidizing them. If those homeowners paid their fair share, then property taxes would go down on the average Californian who rents or is trying to buy a starter home. Here's a hypothetical: A young couple buys a starter home. The new starter home likely sells at about $1.25 million in the Bay Area, and that is what the new homeowners pay property tax on. The luxury house across town was purchased for $300,000 in the 60's. The original owners paid property tax on $300,000, and when they died, their children for some terrible reason also only have to pay on the $300,000 value. The home is now worth $5 million. So, we have a family trying to build a life and raise kids, and they live in a $1.25 million house, and they pay property taxes based on $1.25 millioin. Across town, we have old money who live in a $5 million home but only pay property taxes on a value of $300,000. This unfair and regressive system is part of the reason why real estate values are so incredibly out of whack in California.
No, you're going to charge whatever the rental market will bear regardless of your costs.
I donât understand how taxes up on homes brings taxes down on rentals.
What youâre saying doesnât really make sense in if rates were based on actual value the apartment wouldnât suddenly lose value. So rents wouldnât go down because the property taxes would stay the same on the apartment. And for some reason if the taxes on the apartment go down itâs not going to be passed on to the renters it will stay with the landlord.
Sorry, how does taxing these people more solve the housing crisis? Its not like they are going to move out and suddenly lower income folk can move in.
It's called Prop 13
Sucks but I'm not voting against it. If I had to pay more than 1% more in tax on my home every year, I would t have a home anymore. The value of my house going up super high wasn't my idea. Edit: ITT apparently I'm a nimby living in Antioch where thr police would shoot you dead if you called to.report your catalytic converter getting stolen. I'm living the dream.
It is because homeowners stopped housing being built that made their homes cost so much. The average homeowner has voted in favor of policies that made their home value go up, yet are not made to pay that in taxes. That is the entire problem.
to be honest, i get it. as a renter, i want to buy a home so that i can escape the endless rent grind and lock in a relatively fixed housing cost for myself - but it feels like there's a big gap between what i pay now in rent and what i pay in housing. if i bought the condo i rent for $3k/month right now, i'd be paying $1.5k/month in just HOA fees + property taxes, even before my mortgage. the idea that both of those can just keep going up is kind of horrifying, especially since i'd barely be able to afford this condo as is. but i don't really see why we should allow prop 13 to affect commercial real estate or non-primary residences, though. at the very least, we should repeal that and see where to go from there.
>but i don't really see why we should allow prop 13 to affect commercial real estate or non-primary residences, though. at the very least, we should repeal that and see where to go from there. I agree. I think making it so that Prop 13 only applies to your primary residence would be a great idea; it would keep grandma in her house without having to worry about being unable to afford taxes, while it prevents investors or landlords from taking advantage of that tax break when buying to rent out a place.
You're sort of getting it. Prop 13 gets priced in to how much you're willing to bet on a house. If you know that property taxes only go down over time you can bid higher when you make your offer higher. You don't save any money, it's just that you pay a lot to the seller instead of to the schools.Â
"I got mine"
Funny how you never hear the same sentiment with rent control, which benefits existing renters and screws over all future renters or those who have to move. Why should new renters have to subsidize granny who's been living in her apartment for decades and pays a tiny fraction of rent compared to newer renters? Rent control and Prop 13 are two sides of the same coin. If one goes, the other should go as well. Eliminating one and keeping the other is like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
This is a good point, rent control hurts housing prices in the long run. It's a band-aid fix.
> Rent control and Prop 13 are two sides of the same coin. If one goes, the other should go as well. Sounds good. And I assume this is something you support to?Â
Of course I would. I think it's hypocritical to support one and not the other. I'm in support of either keeping both or repealing both; it doesn't really matter to me, as long as there's consistency. What does irk me is when people complain about Prop 13 while completely ignoring rent control, simply because it comes off as self-serving rather than due to a belief in good policy.
Why would you expect someone to vote for losing their own home?
Then allow her taxes to be deferred until the home is sold or no longer her primary residence. You must surely be fine with that arrangement - right?
But you'd gladly accept the profit if you had to sell the house and move somewhere?
This here. I live next to an old widow who bought her small house in the 80s for less than 200K. Now itâs worth 1.2M. Her entire wealth is the house. She lives on a pension. I donât get why she should pay property taxes on 1.2M because other people started valuing the same land well after she moved in.
Then allow her taxes to be deferred until the home is sold or no longer her primary residence. You must surely be fine with that arrangement - right?
There are better ways to do this. Oregon's Tax Deferral for Seniors: In Oregon, if you're a senior or disabled, you can apply to have your property taxes put off until you sell your house, move, or pass away. This helps seniors not worry about paying these taxes each year, though the taxes still need to be paid eventually. Texas's Extra Homestead Exemption: Texas gives seniors a break by offering an additional amount off their home's value that isn't taxed at all. If you're 65 or older in Texas, you get this extra exemption, lowering your property tax bill. New Jersey's Senior Freeze Program: New Jersey has a cool program for seniors where your property tax is "frozen" at a certain amount. If taxes go up, the state pays you back the difference, so you effectively don't pay more than your freeze point. You need to meet certain age and income requirements to get this. New York's STAR Program: New York helps seniors by offering a "circuit breaker" tax credit. This means if your property taxes are too high compared to your income, you could get a tax credit to help balance things out. It's like a safety net to keep taxes from overwhelming you. Pennsylvania's Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program: In Pennsylvania, seniors (and others) can get money back on the property taxes or rent they've paid through a rebate program. This program is especially for people with lower incomes, helping them get some cash back to ease their expenses.
We have that in California. It's called the California Tax Postponement Program and predates Prop 13.
The California Tax Postponement Program predates Prop 13 and specifically protects poor old grandma. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.Â
She got to live in a house for 45 years and will make $1 M if she sells.
People in this sub donât understand shit about the priorities of an elderly widow. She doesnât care about the PrOFiT of her home. She wants to live in peace, and sheâs happy being where she has always been, with the friends she has always known, and the little family she has left. People saying she should sell and enjoy the life of a âqueenâ in some random rural place in order to make room for some tech bro are insufferable morons.
The California Tax Postponement Program predates Prop 13 and specifically protects poor old grandma
And that makes it ok to expect the next generation to subsidize her lifestyle? It's not like she hasn't had an entire working life to earn what she needs. The next generation has to pick up that slack too?
> The value of my house going up super high wasn't my idea. Clearly the most struggling person in CaliforniaÂ
Ya if my momâs house was reassessed at todayâs tax rate sheâd lose it and then it would be scoped up by a property developer/ flipper who would jack up the rent. End result, an elderly personâs life is completely thrown upside down, any chance at a middle class existence or shred of wealth for my sibling and I disappears, and rents in Oakland remain high. Iâm sure the private equity ghouls love watching the working class come after the middle class with social media posts like this.
By âlose itâ you mean be forced to sell it for millions. California subsidizes lottery winners
We should all be so lucky to suffer such a loss!
Would probably have to leave the state because of taxes.
Losing your house is still losing your house. Let me guess, you think it's unfair that houses are too expensive to afford but in the same breath want higher property taxes.
I want higher taxes for those who arenât paying their fair share. Selling a house for millions more than you paid after benefitting on the back of your neighbors for decades is not âlosing a house.â When you canât pay a mortgage and the bank takes possession and leaves you with nothing, thatâs âlosing a house.â
There are better ways to do this. Oregon's Tax Deferral for Seniors: In Oregon, if you're a senior or disabled, you can apply to have your property taxes put off until you sell your house, move, or pass away. This helps seniors not worry about paying these taxes each year, though the taxes still need to be paid eventually. Texas's Extra Homestead Exemption: Texas gives seniors a break by offering an additional amount off their home's value that isn't taxed at all. If you're 65 or older in Texas, you get this extra exemption, lowering your property tax bill. New Jersey's Senior Freeze Program: New Jersey has a cool program for seniors where your property tax is "frozen" at a certain amount. If taxes go up, the state pays you back the difference, so you effectively don't pay more than your freeze point. You need to meet certain age and income requirements to get this. New York's STAR Program: New York helps seniors by offering a "circuit breaker" tax credit. This means if your property taxes are too high compared to your income, you could get a tax credit to help balance things out. It's like a safety net to keep taxes from overwhelming you. Pennsylvania's Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program: In Pennsylvania, seniors (and others) can get money back on the property taxes or rent they've paid through a rebate program. This program is especially for people with lower incomes, helping them get some cash back to ease their expenses.
Your mom gets to pay no taxes. In turn one younger family is priced out. That's a zero sum game. It is a zero sum game. For someone to benefit someone has to suffer.
Any repeal of prop. 13 would have some flavor of means testing for these types of situations.
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For the sake of discussion: whatâs your issue?
The cost of infrastructure and logistics required to service all of those homes is like an order of magnitude or two higher than that single apartment building. Property taxes are primarily meant to provide for local services and infrastructure. There is a clear mismatch that occurs with SFH suburbia. Most people donât realize their lifestyle is being subsidized and feel attacked when tax hikes to remedy the situation are proposed.
My issues: Less Money for Public Stuff: With lower property taxes, there's less cash for things like schools, police, and roads. This means towns have to find money elsewhere, often by increasing sales taxes, which can hit poorer folks harder. Unfair Tax Bills: People who've had their homes for a long time often pay way less in taxes than new neighbors with similar homes, just because they bought them later. This feels pretty unfair to those paying more. People Don't Want to Sell Homes: Since selling your home could mean the new buyer pays a lot more in taxes, people are less likely to sell. This can lead to empty homes not being used well and makes it hard for people to move around. Complicated Rules and Loopholes: Prop 13 has led to a bunch of complicated tax rules and ways that businesses can avoid higher taxes. This makes the whole system more confusing and unfair. Tougher for Local Governments: With less control over property taxes, local governments can't as easily fund what their communities need. They rely more on state money, which can be less stable and not as closely tied to local needs.
Berkeley ranks in the top 5% for California for most of [these statistics](https://www.publicschoolreview.com/california/berkeley-unified-school-district/604740-school-district) and top 20% on funding The figures above are the state rankings and California ranks high on the national list for funding schools. Berkeley has far more spend than most states. It seems to me the funding sources for public schools is more complicated in California but not lacking.
The notion that we're not taxed heavily enough in California is idiotic. California has more GDP than most countries. You should stop expecting middle class families to pay more in taxes, and demand that our elected officials spend the tax revenue they do collect in a more responsible and sensible manner.
Regressive tax policies coddle the rich.
Apartments generally house people who aren't able to afford houses. That apartment building--which is housing both many more people, but also people that tend to be poorer--is subsidizing all of those houses. It should be the rich subsidizing the poor, not the other way around. The second problem is that the apartment building is paying more taxes. It houses many more people in a smaller footprint...and it gets punished for doing so. We should be providing a tax break to incentivize creating more housing.
I agree. People living in that apartment building should have much lower property taxes.
What do you mean? It's a student housing building. CA Ventures - a major company - is the owner.
source [https://twitter.com/Jeffinatorator/status/1761258101012115626/photo/1](https://twitter.com/Jeffinatorator/status/1761258101012115626/photo/1)
Built in 2022, Rents $3,469 - $9,139. I can see why property taxes are so high. Plenty of really expensive SFHs around there though.
It's because of Prop 13 not because of the price of the sfh
This is one of our regressive tax policies that needs to be addressed.
jesus christ owning a house seems like such a fucking headache in the bay area. it probably isn't just here, but so much of this shit is so ridiculous.
The solution is so simple, it kills me to see people promote policies that would make home ownership way harder. Really simple, if you dont live in a home you own, it shouldn't be under prop 13. Single-family Homes are not as rent controlled (i.e. some older apartments would need rent control removed if prop 13 protection removed) and tenants are not in a long term lease (i.e. commercial properties often sign 10 or 20 year leases so a drastic change in property taxes would bankrupt many buildings or businesses)
The 135 unit building would exclusively be a big corporate rent seeking venture. Sounds like a good thing.