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> But if we go to a land tax, don't you have similar problems? Can you really say that land that has a 20-story highrise condo on it has the same value as the s

> But if we go to a land tax, don't you have similar problems? Can you really say that land that has a 20-story highrise condo on it has the same value as the same land with a house on it? Yes, because we're talking about the land -- really, more like the geographic space than the literal land -- and not the buildings. > Because if you're going to buy the land - no matter what you intend to do with it - you get the land with the existing building. Okay. And? > So, if you want to disentangle the price of the land from the price of the building For property tax purposes I think it's already common to value both the land and the buildings and then sum them up for the total property value.

sokoloff 5y ago
The last paragraph is how it appears on the property tax statement, but I think the assessment isn’t created ground-up, but rather more from a market price down, starting with a likely sale price as an input rather than an output and deriving land and improvements prices so as to sum the input figure.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Yes, they do that, or at least they claim to. Out where I live, they can probably come close, because there is still some vacant land out here. When it sells, you get an idea of what nearby land would sell for if it were vacant. But here's a building across the street from Central Park in Manhattan. What's the land price? When was the last time that a vacant lot sold in Manhattan? I mean, I guess you can go by the cost of the last place that sold with a building on it, and the buyer tore down the building. (Subtracting out the cost of the teardown.) When was the last time that happened across the street from Central Park? So in the places that the land is already heavily used, this is not all that easy to do.
- larsiusprime 5y ago
  Part III goes into assessments in detail.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  They demolish buildings in Manhattan regularly, then build new ones.

sokoloff 5y ago

The last paragraph is how it appears on the property tax statement, but I think the assessment isn’t created ground-up, but rather more from a market price down, starting with a likely sale price as an input rather than an output and deriving land and improvements prices so as to sum the input figure.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

Yes, they do that, or at least they claim to. Out where I live, they can probably come close, because there is still some vacant land out here. When it sells, you get an idea of what nearby land would sell for if it were vacant. But here's a building across the street from Central Park in Manhattan. What's the land price? When was the last time that a vacant lot sold in Manhattan? I mean, I guess you can go by the cost of the last place that sold with a building on it, and the buyer tore down the building. (Subtracting out the cost of the teardown.) When was the last time that happened across the street from Central Park? So in the places that the land is already heavily used, this is not all that easy to do.

larsiusprime 5y ago
Part III goes into assessments in detail.
DarylZero 5y ago
They demolish buildings in Manhattan regularly, then build new ones.