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>entitled to change a municpal culture simply because you got older I get what you probably meant, but this is a really strong statement. Our town is strugglin

>entitled to change a municpal culture simply because you got older I get what you probably meant, but this is a really strong statement. Our town is struggling with spiraling property taxes and it is forcing long-term residents out. I really feel for older people who've had decades of a social circle, have people to help them with things they can no longer do, etc. You can't move somewhere else and replicate that.

scetron 4y ago
Indeed! Not everyone has the capability to up and move. I've recently heard that having a good community around you is one of the best things for healthy longevity, it becomes even more difficult to do this. It also happens to be an issue that I am facing, move for more closer alignment to my ideals and abandon my established community, or stay and try to change where I am.
bumby 4y ago
General question related to this: are the spiraling property taxes related to similarly spiraling home values?
- jacobr1 4y ago
  Strong correlation, but not exclusively. Plenty of areas regularly vote for bond measures paid by increases in property taxes. So you can get increases of BOTH rate and value.
  - bumby 4y ago
    I don’t know what the alternative is, unless we find a completely different funding scheme. While I do feel for seniors who get priced out of their homes, that feeling it mitigated somewhat knowing they are in that situation because they are sitting on a large asset. If we want to treat housing as an “investment” we have to take the good with the bad.
- tclancy 4y ago
  Couldn't say from NH. It's the only source of revenue, so they go up no matter what housing values do.
zamnos 4y ago
The other situation would be California's Prop 13, which locks down property tax rates to when you bought the house. It keeps long term residents in, but has had some unexpected consequences and its part in California's housing crisis is not to be ignored. https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy-detailed-in-critical-study/674412 https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy...
- tclancy 4y ago
  That's really weird though, because it can be passed down to heirs, right?
tracker1 4y ago
Yeah... I hate property taxes as a concept. That you can lose your property due to simply living another year is kind of messed up. At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation. My house (according to the city/county) is worth 3x what I bought it at 5 years ago... If it goes up this much again, taxes will likely reach close to the mortgage payment. It's simply not right. I'd be happy to move right now, but interest rates effectively prohibit that as if I had the same amount burrowed my mortgage payment would be over twice what it is now.
- wyager 4y ago
  > At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation This completely eliminates the social upside of property taxes compared to other forms of taxes
  - bumby 4y ago
    Couldn’t that social upside be captured through means that don’t force people from their homes? It seems like the use of property tax as a major local finding mechanism has a lot of negative effects, from poor school performance to inflated housing costs.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      There's very little correlation between per student costs and performance. It's very common for urban schools to have very poor outcomes with very high costs per student compared to suburban towns with much lower costs and much better performance. The state where I live also equalizes educational funding to some degree with state funding.
      - bumby 4y ago
        Is your suggestion property taxes could go to zero without an impact on schools? Regardless, it’s besides the point. The point is there are different potential mechanisms for raising money that don’t have the same second and third order effects of property taxes.
ghaff 4y ago
I live in an ex-urban town and there's very little commercial development in town except at the fringes. However, town services and school need to be paid for and this was becoming an issue without significantly raising property taxes--which aren't super-high but it's also not an especially wealthy town as a whole. We recently went through a couple of very contentious town meetings about doing a rezone in one of the two parts of town that has some commercial development basically so distribution centers can be built there. But make no mistake. The town as a whole would be perfectly happy to have near zero non-farm commercial activity if that were financially feasible.

scetron 4y ago

Indeed! Not everyone has the capability to up and move. I've recently heard that having a good community around you is one of the best things for healthy longevity, it becomes even more difficult to do this. It also happens to be an issue that I am facing, move for more closer alignment to my ideals and abandon my established community, or stay and try to change where I am.

bumby 4y ago

General question related to this: are the spiraling property taxes related to similarly spiraling home values?

jacobr1 4y ago
Strong correlation, but not exclusively. Plenty of areas regularly vote for bond measures paid by increases in property taxes. So you can get increases of BOTH rate and value.
- bumby 4y ago
  I don’t know what the alternative is, unless we find a completely different funding scheme. While I do feel for seniors who get priced out of their homes, that feeling it mitigated somewhat knowing they are in that situation because they are sitting on a large asset. If we want to treat housing as an “investment” we have to take the good with the bad.
tclancy 4y ago
Couldn't say from NH. It's the only source of revenue, so they go up no matter what housing values do.

zamnos 4y ago

The other situation would be California's Prop 13, which locks down property tax rates to when you bought the house. It keeps long term residents in, but has had some unexpected consequences and its part in California's housing crisis is not to be ignored. https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy-detailed-in-critical-study/674412 https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy...

tclancy 4y ago
That's really weird though, because it can be passed down to heirs, right?

tracker1 4y ago

Yeah... I hate property taxes as a concept. That you can lose your property due to simply living another year is kind of messed up. At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation. My house (according to the city/county) is worth 3x what I bought it at 5 years ago... If it goes up this much again, taxes will likely reach close to the mortgage payment. It's simply not right. I'd be happy to move right now, but interest rates effectively prohibit that as if I had the same amount burrowed my mortgage payment would be over twice what it is now.

wyager 4y ago
> At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation This completely eliminates the social upside of property taxes compared to other forms of taxes
- bumby 4y ago
  Couldn’t that social upside be captured through means that don’t force people from their homes? It seems like the use of property tax as a major local finding mechanism has a lot of negative effects, from poor school performance to inflated housing costs.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    There's very little correlation between per student costs and performance. It's very common for urban schools to have very poor outcomes with very high costs per student compared to suburban towns with much lower costs and much better performance. The state where I live also equalizes educational funding to some degree with state funding.
    - bumby 4y ago
      Is your suggestion property taxes could go to zero without an impact on schools? Regardless, it’s besides the point. The point is there are different potential mechanisms for raising money that don’t have the same second and third order effects of property taxes.

ghaff 4y ago

I live in an ex-urban town and there's very little commercial development in town except at the fringes. However, town services and school need to be paid for and this was becoming an issue without significantly raising property taxes--which aren't super-high but it's also not an especially wealthy town as a whole. We recently went through a couple of very contentious town meetings about doing a rezone in one of the two parts of town that has some commercial development basically so distribution centers can be built there. But make no mistake. The town as a whole would be perfectly happy to have near zero non-farm commercial activity if that were financially feasible.