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that’s right, appraisal/assessment methods can be changed more easily than tax law, and could be a potential avenue for more equitable/productive taxation. the

that’s right, appraisal/assessment methods can be changed more easily than tax law, and could be a potential avenue for more equitable/productive taxation. the barrier is, of course, working with the ~5000 property taxing jurisdictions in the US, each its own special form of opaque bureaucracy, averse to any and all risk-taking (not saying this to discourage, but to show the magnitude of the challenge).

larsiusprime 5y ago
Gotta start somewhere! Change is never easy.
- deepnotderp 5y ago
  Indeed! Would love to start, do you have a good email address to reach you? Mine’s in my bio
- clairity 5y ago
  yes, but like most things worth pursuing, its a thorny problem, largely for economic and sociopolitical reasons, but also technical. as you probably know, AVMs (automated valuation models) have been the hotness over the past few decades, but zillow (recently, but all along too) has shown the real limitation of AVMs. in theory, the likes of google and apple have enough geospatial data to create good land value AVMs, but you really still need appraisers on the ground for hyperlocal adjustments that just don't get captured in the AVM data and/or model. and that's all before the politicians, bureaucrats, and competing public interests get involved.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
lars's article is what made it fully click for me on how important this topic is, so I'm going to mostly leave it to him here, but I just want to stress one thing. One thing the Bitcoin issue has shown me is just how pivotal that 'number go up' is to society. When 'number go up', that thing gets bought in, which brings more people to it. I think many look at the LVT like medicine, yes, this thing is good and important, but it tastes bad, so we can't get the collective buy-in, and never will. But we all know what's going to happen to Bitcoin, it's a bubble, and it will crash, crash hard. But so is the real estate market. Real estate has gone up as interest rates have come down. With our interest rates at 0%, there is now no more room for the interest rates to go down, and thus real estate market to go up. We've reached the end, as we come out of CO-VID they might go up another 10% or so, but the easy money is gone - but the downside is now massive. If rates go back to 5% we will see real estate prices go back to where they were at when interest rates were last at 5%. Investors have a huge risk disparity. And this is where the Land Value Tax can help. If we can implement the Land Value Tax, and at the same time implement a one-time tax credit equal to the price of the land, not only will no one lose out, but those that have the most at risk will now de-risk, and have the most to gain. All in the meantime instantly incentivizing the correct behavior.

larsiusprime 5y ago

Gotta start somewhere! Change is never easy.

deepnotderp 5y ago
Indeed! Would love to start, do you have a good email address to reach you? Mine’s in my bio
clairity 5y ago
yes, but like most things worth pursuing, its a thorny problem, largely for economic and sociopolitical reasons, but also technical. as you probably know, AVMs (automated valuation models) have been the hotness over the past few decades, but zillow (recently, but all along too) has shown the real limitation of AVMs. in theory, the likes of google and apple have enough geospatial data to create good land value AVMs, but you really still need appraisers on the ground for hyperlocal adjustments that just don't get captured in the AVM data and/or model. and that's all before the politicians, bureaucrats, and competing public interests get involved.

ItsMonkk 5y ago

lars's article is what made it fully click for me on how important this topic is, so I'm going to mostly leave it to him here, but I just want to stress one thing. One thing the Bitcoin issue has shown me is just how pivotal that 'number go up' is to society. When 'number go up', that thing gets bought in, which brings more people to it. I think many look at the LVT like medicine, yes, this thing is good and important, but it tastes bad, so we can't get the collective buy-in, and never will. But we all know what's going to happen to Bitcoin, it's a bubble, and it will crash, crash hard. But so is the real estate market. Real estate has gone up as interest rates have come down. With our interest rates at 0%, there is now no more room for the interest rates to go down, and thus real estate market to go up. We've reached the end, as we come out of CO-VID they might go up another 10% or so, but the easy money is gone - but the downside is now massive. If rates go back to 5% we will see real estate prices go back to where they were at when interest rates were last at 5%. Investors have a huge risk disparity. And this is where the Land Value Tax can help. If we can implement the Land Value Tax, and at the same time implement a one-time tax credit equal to the price of the land, not only will no one lose out, but those that have the most at risk will now de-risk, and have the most to gain. All in the meantime instantly incentivizing the correct behavior.