5 ms·

When someone buys a property today, it is subject to the same 2% a year rule. I don't see how this is not a level field.

mrbabbage 9y ago
Age The benefit accrues over many years, similar to rent control. As a result, the benefits flow to long-standing landholders, who skew disproportionately older. The result, at least for me in San Francisco: I pay twice as much in rent for a bedroom in a four bed apartment as my grandmother does in property tax for a 4000 square foot mansion. She bought her place over fifty years ago; by definition, I could not have done so. Indeed, with the direction things are heading, huge categories of people are locked out of all segments of the SF housing market due to excessive prices; there's nothing level about that.
- cynicalbastard 9y ago
  i hope you've looked into minimizing the property tax liabilities for when that house gets transferred to you.
function_seven 9y ago
My neighbor pays half the property tax that I do, despite our houses both being worth the same amount. My new neighbors pay %25 more than I do, also in a similarly valued house. That's what parent is likely referring to. I'm not making a value judgement either way. Prop 13 was intended to address the real issue of people being forced out of their own homes due to rising values. But it appears to have the side effect of pushing the values even higher by restricting the sell side of the market.
- eanzenberg 9y ago
  Sucks if you at some point can't afford property tax because house prices went up 1000% around you. Think everyone can pay $20k / year?
  - function_seven 9y ago
    Yeah it does suck. No I don't think everyone can afford that.
    - stickfigure 9y ago
      suck is all relative. That person is now sitting on a property worth megabucks. They can't afford the taxes, but they can sell it and retire to Florida. I personally wouldn't mind having a little more of that kind of suck in my life.
      - alexqgb 9y ago
        That's a pretty shitty solution for everyone involved if they don't actually want to be separated from the rest of their family by 3,000 miles. And not just their families, but their friends and communities, which have a profound impact on overall well-being in their later years. I wouldn't call your suggestion deliberately cruel since you don't seem to have any idea how socially damaging this kind of isolating displacement can be. But I would say that the forced separation of people from their famalies and communities is a really hideous policy outcome, and one that should be strenuously avoided. Obviously, if somebody wants to move far away, fine. But forcing them to do so is horribly wrong.
        aianus 9y ago
        You don't need to move 3,000 miles away, you just have to move outside of commuting range where the prices fall off a cliff. You can still live in the same quality house and see your family frequently. It's nuts to tax Joe Worker who needs to live in that area to get to work double or triple the property tax of the rich old guy next door who spends his days playing golf or w/e.
        alexqgb 9y ago
        Eh, "community range" turns out to be pretty massive around the SF Bay Area, for example. Moving people two or more hours away by car can still do a lot of damage to their relationships, especially when their ability to drive is becoming weaker. No the answer here is "sorry, but no" to all the people who have decided to block density in central areas in order to keep their own property values astronomically high. There's no good reason why we should be shipping everyone but the richest workers in their economic prime to painfully remote locals because people in San Francisco's Sunset District are blockading the kinds of buildings that make places like Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Brownstone Brooklyn such attractive places to live.
- PretzelFisch 9y ago
  All of CA has the prop 13, where we see it get blamed for high prices are in very high demand areas. How much price reduction would you really see without it? Looking at New York it doesn't look like much since the primary issue seems to be supply.
  - Decade 9y ago
    But in New York, if you find Manhattan to be unaffordable, then you can move to a suburb. In San Francisco, the suburbs are even more expensive than the city. The bad incentives of Prop 13 reward cities for favoring offices over housing. The property tax generally doesn't support the infrastructure, so they approve other activities that they can tax. Cupertino just opened the Apple Spaceship, but they have no plans to approve housing for thousands more workers. In the news a month ago, in the midst of a teacher housing affordability problem, San Jose rejects teacher housing. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/08/san-jose-city-hall-balks-at-landowners-plan-for-affordable-teacher-housing/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/08/san-jose-city-hall-bal...

mrbabbage 9y ago

Age The benefit accrues over many years, similar to rent control. As a result, the benefits flow to long-standing landholders, who skew disproportionately older. The result, at least for me in San Francisco: I pay twice as much in rent for a bedroom in a four bed apartment as my grandmother does in property tax for a 4000 square foot mansion. She bought her place over fifty years ago; by definition, I could not have done so. Indeed, with the direction things are heading, huge categories of people are locked out of all segments of the SF housing market due to excessive prices; there's nothing level about that.

cynicalbastard 9y ago
i hope you've looked into minimizing the property tax liabilities for when that house gets transferred to you.

function_seven 9y ago

My neighbor pays half the property tax that I do, despite our houses both being worth the same amount. My new neighbors pay %25 more than I do, also in a similarly valued house. That's what parent is likely referring to. I'm not making a value judgement either way. Prop 13 was intended to address the real issue of people being forced out of their own homes due to rising values. But it appears to have the side effect of pushing the values even higher by restricting the sell side of the market.

eanzenberg 9y ago
Sucks if you at some point can't afford property tax because house prices went up 1000% around you. Think everyone can pay $20k / year?
- function_seven 9y ago
  Yeah it does suck. No I don't think everyone can afford that.
  - stickfigure 9y ago
    suck is all relative. That person is now sitting on a property worth megabucks. They can't afford the taxes, but they can sell it and retire to Florida. I personally wouldn't mind having a little more of that kind of suck in my life.
    - alexqgb 9y ago
      That's a pretty shitty solution for everyone involved if they don't actually want to be separated from the rest of their family by 3,000 miles. And not just their families, but their friends and communities, which have a profound impact on overall well-being in their later years. I wouldn't call your suggestion deliberately cruel since you don't seem to have any idea how socially damaging this kind of isolating displacement can be. But I would say that the forced separation of people from their famalies and communities is a really hideous policy outcome, and one that should be strenuously avoided. Obviously, if somebody wants to move far away, fine. But forcing them to do so is horribly wrong.
      - aianus 9y ago
        You don't need to move 3,000 miles away, you just have to move outside of commuting range where the prices fall off a cliff. You can still live in the same quality house and see your family frequently. It's nuts to tax Joe Worker who needs to live in that area to get to work double or triple the property tax of the rich old guy next door who spends his days playing golf or w/e.
        alexqgb 9y ago
        Eh, "community range" turns out to be pretty massive around the SF Bay Area, for example. Moving people two or more hours away by car can still do a lot of damage to their relationships, especially when their ability to drive is becoming weaker. No the answer here is "sorry, but no" to all the people who have decided to block density in central areas in order to keep their own property values astronomically high. There's no good reason why we should be shipping everyone but the richest workers in their economic prime to painfully remote locals because people in San Francisco's Sunset District are blockading the kinds of buildings that make places like Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Brownstone Brooklyn such attractive places to live.
PretzelFisch 9y ago
All of CA has the prop 13, where we see it get blamed for high prices are in very high demand areas. How much price reduction would you really see without it? Looking at New York it doesn't look like much since the primary issue seems to be supply.
- Decade 9y ago
  But in New York, if you find Manhattan to be unaffordable, then you can move to a suburb. In San Francisco, the suburbs are even more expensive than the city. The bad incentives of Prop 13 reward cities for favoring offices over housing. The property tax generally doesn't support the infrastructure, so they approve other activities that they can tax. Cupertino just opened the Apple Spaceship, but they have no plans to approve housing for thousands more workers. In the news a month ago, in the midst of a teacher housing affordability problem, San Jose rejects teacher housing. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/08/san-jose-city-hall-balks-at-landowners-plan-for-affordable-teacher-housing/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/08/san-jose-city-hall-bal...