6 ms·

I'm in Texas, a state with pretty high property tax. We've also seen a ton of appreciation in recent years. Booming economy, transplants from other states, then

I'm in Texas, a state with pretty high property tax. We've also seen a ton of appreciation in recent years. Booming economy, transplants from other states, then the COVID factor. We also have a near free market on rent; I've been a landlord and not aware of any limitations. There are a couple limits on property taxes (namely a cap of 10% increase per year on "homesteads", and an Agriculture exemption for rural properties). But for most people in the towns and cities, this means our property tax bills have been growing 10% a year for probably the last 15+ years. So, the problem we're having now is people that have owned a home for decades or even just 5 years are finding they get forced to sell because they can't afford the tax bill. Since housing has appreciated, they're not just forced to sell, they're likely forced to leave their community for another cheaper place. I don't think it's right to lock up land/property forever, but I do think people buying property should be able to predict whether they will be able to afford to continue living there as they age. Even rather young families are dealing with this. I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades, young families have to move their kids in their high school years because the taxes have become unmanageable, how it disproportionately impacts POC as gentrification occurs, and all the other ways it impacts people's lives who just thought they were buying a house to set roots for their lives/families but then externalities cause it to suddenly become unaffordable. It's extremely perverse when you consider that these people's tax dollars are often used by politicians to encourage the very "growth" that contributes to their affordability problem. They court corporations and give huge tax breaks to move their offices/factories to Texas, which drives up the demand for housing, etc.

grugagag 3y ago
Yeah, that could be adjustated with lower fees for the first/main property/residence.
- carom 3y ago
  Then you just have a city full of single family homes.
ikiris 3y ago
All of this sounds well and good until you see the natural conclusion of those policies to keep old people from having to pay for their dragon hoarde. It turns your city into the Bay area where no one can afford to live there except the landed gentry you've created.
- gedy 3y ago
  > old people from having to pay for their dragon hoarde. What, their retirement savings? How much is recommended to be saved by 65 now - 2 million dollars or something?
- bombcar 3y ago
  You need to fix the problem, but fixing it by Prop 13 has numerous issues. If it had been deferred as a lien against future sale/inheritance, or didn't apply to commercial properties, or ...
  - ikiris 3y ago
    Fixing the "problem" of people not moving out when the area prices go up is exactly the problem itself. The issue is availability of property flat out. As long as there's no incentive to make affordable property available, every actor wants their property values to rise and cares little for the negative effects it has on everything else. Those property taxes exist for good reason because you have to be able to pay for the services / infrastructure from it. Without those matching the area, problematic spirals occur.
bombcar 3y ago
Property tax on owner-occupied residential property everywhere should have a "replace it with a lien against the property" option - some states have it. The exact situation you're referring to caused Prop 13 in CA, and something has to be done before something like that gets enacted.
- rcpt 3y ago
  California has the California Tax Postponement Program which predates Prop 13 and specifically protects poor old grandma. Prop 13 wasn't passed as a law to help the unfortunate. It was anti tax hatred of the government. Jarvis wanted a "tax revolt" which is why all property in the state, even oil fields and golf courses, gets the tax break.
  - zamfi 3y ago
    > Prop 13 wasn't passed as a law to help the unfortunate No, but it was sold to the public that way of course.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Exactly. And now it will be nearly impossible to remove.
    - rcpt 3y ago
      Jarvis was pretty upfront that he was "mad as hell" and wanted a "tax revolt". Today yeah the marketing is 100% that it's a welfare program for seniors.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  I can only find information on property tax liens as it relates to delinquency and non payment, not as an alternative model for deferring property taxes (I imagine until death of the owner or sale of said property) Do you have any more information? At first blush I can see how inheritance schemes would create massive loopholes in this for example.
- tzs 3y ago
hotpotamus 3y ago
Old people in Texas get their property taxes frozen I believe at 65. But honestly it might be better for them to downsize into something more appropriate and perhaps free up the larger houses for families. My mother has basically just turned my parents' house into an eBay warehouse full of junk that she intends to sell one day. I can't say that I have any big problem with that at the end of the day, but if you think getting young families into housing is a more important goal for society, then it does seem like a waste. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sore about the 10% year over year thing, particularly when I hear about how Republicans run a low-tax state or that a wealth tax is unconstitutional/infeasible. I pay my wealth tax every year, but I suspect I'm too poor for the kind of wealth tax they mean. I can at least enjoy the irony.
- conductr 3y ago
  > Old people in Texas get their property taxes frozen I believe at 65. True but if you're turning 65 after you're tax bill has grown 10% for over a decade as your transitioning to your fixed income years; it's not a good thing just to freeze the tax bill. You might not have time to earn and save enough to cover the value it gets frozen at. It does help soften the blow for many though. > But honestly it might be better for them to downsize into something more appropriate and perhaps free up the larger houses for families. I wholeheartedly despise this line of thought, unless it's coming from their individual decision to downsize. You're basically treating the house like a commodity. It's a Home this person lived in, raised family in, hopes to continue hosting holidays in, where grandchildren can go to visit, etc. They should be able to use it until they decide to leave. On average, they only have another decade or so of life left anyway after their taxes get frozen at 65, let them enjoy their home.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    I live with them rent-free so it would probably go against my own interest as well to force them out via pricing.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    If you despise that thinking, then we need to regulate the housing market to discourage seeing housing as an investment as we see it today. Everyone expects, more or less, for real estate to climb in value but nobody wants to square that with these other emotional ideas attached to housing. It either is an asset or it’s a commodity as far as the market goes. If you want generational housing and for housing to be generally affordable something has to give. Kill it as an asset class and you get what you’re looking for. 10 years is a long time in the housing market. Assets sitting for 10 years under utilized is another way to think about it. These two ideas - that housing is an investment and that people shouldn’t be incurring tax burdens on them like this - do not square
ohhnoodont 3y ago
There are ways to address this problem, but in any case this is still ultimately a very good problem for property owners to have. Their property value has increased dramatically. Being forced to move is inconvenient, but you do so with a large bag of cash.
- riversflow 3y ago
  I would rather have my home than a bag of cash. I’m not even old, but I did grow up here and it has immense sentimental value to me. My grandma lived in her house for over 65 years, and died in it. I doubt she would have moved for anything short of multigenerational wealth.
- compiler-guy 3y ago
  That big bag of cash won’t buy a community where you know most everyone and have friends of decades or more whom you support and support you in return. Social connections take a long time to build and are hard to replace with cash.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Then you need to square values here. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Everyone wants their home to be worth more and more year over year but doesn’t want to incur any obligation for it. How do you square that with the idea that communities and social connections are more important? Look at what California did with prop 13. It’s a disaster by all accounts. We need to switch models not create more complicated exemptions around property taxation. Land Value Tax is more equitable and doesn’t have the intrinsic volatility and unpredictably of how we do property taxes today which is assessed in the unit value not the land and only punishes under utilization and vacant land holdings. This encourages building and to some extent smaller parcels of land per unit built
    - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
      Seems like you are opining for "everyone", including a huge number of retirees and families on very limited income like SS or disability. Yet somehow I dont think those two personas make any amount of the "everyone" posting here on HN
no_wizard 3y ago
> I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades Housing being seen as this generational I own it forever thing that Americans have doesn’t also square with the American narrative of housing as an investment. It’s one or the other. If you want housing to be seen as something that more or less “always goes up” but you can’t be taxed in the increased value then you are by nature distorting market dynamics you don’t see elsewhere. We need a land value tax instead it’s more fair and less volatile
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Another way to think about it: they’re selling at a premium well over they bought it for. Not necessarily. The fact that they're getting priced out right now via taxes on the estimated value of the house doesn't mean they can sell the house at that value (being forced to sell) and that they can find a cheaper alternative that works as well for them. So they can be in for a net loss, all things considered.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    If you can't sell the house for its assessed value you should appeal the assessment.
- conductr 3y ago
  > Another way to think about it: they’re selling at a premium well over they bought it for. It's not a premium. It's what housing costs. If they take their "premium" and buy the next house, their tax bill is unchanged (more or less). They have to actually go find a house that is much cheaper so they can afford the tax bill. More often than not, it causes them to move out of an area that has seen growth to an area that has not seen as much. This might be moving from Houston to a suburb of Houston, or moving from a suburb of Houston, to a small town 100 miles outside Houston. The correct "Other way to think about it" is like telling someone this; You bought this property when the neighborhood was worth nothing. You lived here for years when it was nothing. That might mean it was rural or crime ridden or whatever; but it was cheap and you could afford it. Good job sticking it out all those years and then letting "us" build it up around you. However, now that we've done that, we feel you are still a nothing if you can't afford the tax bill, so go find another rural/crime ridden area to live in. That's where you belong.
rcpt 3y ago
> growing 10% a year for probably the last 15+ years If I were 5x leveraged my net worth on a jackpot like that I'd probably cash out and move to an island to.
- brewdad 3y ago
  The property value may or may not be growing at 10% a year. My state (Oregon) has a tax cap similar to California's. Taxable property values were capped at their value in (I believe) 1979 and are only allowed to increase by 3% a year. My property market value could increase 10% but my taxes will only go up 3%. During the housing crash of the 2000s, my property lost about 40% of its value. My taxes still went up 3% every year because the gap between actual value and taxable value was so large. Depending on the structure of TX property taxes, it is certainly possible to have your tax bill increasing rapidly while property values are stagnant or even falling.
araes 3y ago
The property taxes should be placed proportionally towards those who are making money from owning properties and therefore have an ability to pay them. If grandpa and grandma are just living in their house in Texas and surviving on the last of the pension, they're not even vaguely in the same category as a property owner deciding which of the next condo buildings to buy.
jgr0007 3y ago
Thanks for posting this view: I had read the "Land Value Tax"-side of the argument before (and somewhat agree with it), but I hadn't seen someone post good reasons _not_ to support LVT. I think your reply - and your other replies - are pretty good reasons
- Ntrails 3y ago
  My view is to simply allow property taxes to be deferred until sale or death. Alternatives exist (eg taxable value set by what you paid not marked to market)
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    Income tax is inherently progressive and doesn't hit Grandma who lives on modest retirement and social security. Having one reducing reliance on property taxes
    - rcpt 3y ago
      Do want California's housing situation? Because that's how you get California's housing situation.
      - michaelmrose 3y ago
        California's housing situation is because they are a highly desirable location and didn't build enough housing to meet demand not because they have an income tax.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Selling your house and losing your lower assessment is a huge reason not to sell your house. This make California’s real estate market less liquid then other real estate markets, since selling can have a huge extra cost vs not selling.
    - Ntrails 3y ago
screenoridesaga 3y ago
[dead]
rootusrootus 3y ago
10% is brutal. It should take a lot of effort to increase taxes by more than inflation. 10% year over year means something is broken. I’m glad we cap ours at 3%. And our community hasn’t collapsed for lack of property tax revenue yet. And we are a progressive state, while Texas is conservative. Would have thought it would work out the other way around but I guess not.
- mistercheph 3y ago
  Compare income tax rates! The coffers must be filled somehow!
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    That's valid, but 10% compounded yearly is going to quickly dominate any other taxes.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Their tax bill is rising 10% a year, depending on their property tax (if it is budget based or not), this could just be that their property is appreciating 10% faster than everyone else’s property. That means their equity is shooting through the roof. If it isn’t on a budget system, that could mean that their property (and possibly everyone else’s) property is appreciating 10% a year, or maybe they are adding levies or increasing the rate to fund new spending.
rawgabbit 3y ago
In Texas, although homes are valuable it is or was easy to lose your home to an HOA without a court proceeding. There is a famous incident in 2010 where a soldier lost his home and neither him or his wife knew anything about it. Supposedly the HOAs have been reined in but the whole concept of HOA in a state that prizes rugged individualism is beyond me. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/frisco-soldier-gets-home-back-after-hoa-foreclosure/2121160/ https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/frisco-soldier-gets-home-b...
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  There was another case, in Texas too, I believe where an older widow didn't pay a HOA due after her husband died. The amount was in the low hundreds (maybe $300). HOA liened her house, then forced sale. A local landlord put a bid that was found later to be about 70% under market (like $125,000 offered for a $400,000 home). The HOA Board voted to accept the offer and sold the house to this landlord. In the drama that unfollowed there was also this little nugget: the landlord was on the HOA Board, and was one of the ones who pushed for the forced sale, and then voted in favor of the Board accepting his short offer on the house. I don't recall the details of the outcome, although I believe some compensation was paid out to her.
tmaly 3y ago
I am curios what you consider pretty high property tax? I am in Connecticut and they just reassessed the property. I say a 42% increase in assessment. Our rates are 23 mil.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  If your property tax is 23 million dollars then your overall income would in proportion be well over 100 million a year to afford it reasonably no? To even own a home like that in the first place, you’d have to have a property worth over 100 million dollars if tax calculators are correct. I think this is outside the realm of what most people run into affordability wise and frankly at that level of income I’m willing to bet affording the property tax is much less of a concern
  - tmaly 3y ago
    mil is mill rate = $1 per $1000 of assessed value.
    - no_wizard 3y ago
      TIL! Never heard of it referred that way before
      - MagnumOpus 3y ago
        The correct term is "per mil" or "per mille" (‰), equivalent to "per cent" (%).
rcpt 3y ago
> I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades Do you actually have numbers on this? It's a huge talking point for the anti tax crowd but as far as I can tell there's no epidemic of house rich boomers being forced out of their homes.
wormius 3y ago
Your mention of "growth" makes me think about : https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/local/growth_coalition_theory.html https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/local/growth_coalition_theo...
zx8080 3y ago
How do the property prices behave? I mean, do they rise on par with the property tax? Thanks.
tzs 3y ago
Here in Washington state we have a pretty good system for helping elderly people not get forced out due to rising property taxes. If you are at least 61, and your disposable income is less than 70% of the median income for your county you get two forms of property tax relief: 1. The assessed value of your property is frozen at the value of the first year you signed up for the tax relief. If your disposable income goes about the threshold for a year but comes back down the next you won't lose your frozen assessment. If you go above the threshold for two consecutive years you do lose the freeze. When it comes back down again you get a new freeze at whatever the current assessment is. 2. You are exempt from all "excess property taxes" and part of the state property tax that is for schools. An "excess property tax" generally means voter-approved levies, such as local school taxes. If your disposable income is under 60% of the median income for your county but above 50% in addition to #1 and #2, you get: 3. You are exempt from regular property taxes on the maximum of $50k or 35% of the property value, but not more than $70k. For example for a $400k property you'd be exempt for $70k, so your regular property taxes would be computed as if your property was assessed at $330k. If your disposable is under 50% of the median income for your county, in addition to #1 and #2, instead of #3 you get: #4. You are exempt from regular property taxes on the maximum of $60k or 60% of the property value. For a $400k property this would mean regular property taxes would be based on a value of $160k. In my county the 70/60/50% thresholds are $65k/$56k/$46k. In my county a $400k assessed value home for someone below the $46k threshold would have an annual tax of $900, compared to around $3400 for someone not in the tax relief program. Here is a breakdown of the two (with some rounding): $300 $ 760 fire $240 $1000 state general $ 930 local school $140 $ 360 county road $100 $ 260 county $ 50 $ 130 stormwater management $ 40 $ 111 regional library $ 7 $ 18 PUD $ 2 $ 2 noxious weed Someone below the 70% threshold but not below the 60% threshold would pay about $2200, so still a big savings over the normal amount.

grugagag 3y ago

Yeah, that could be adjustated with lower fees for the first/main property/residence.

carom 3y ago
Then you just have a city full of single family homes.

ikiris 3y ago

All of this sounds well and good until you see the natural conclusion of those policies to keep old people from having to pay for their dragon hoarde. It turns your city into the Bay area where no one can afford to live there except the landed gentry you've created.

gedy 3y ago
> old people from having to pay for their dragon hoarde. What, their retirement savings? How much is recommended to be saved by 65 now - 2 million dollars or something?
bombcar 3y ago
You need to fix the problem, but fixing it by Prop 13 has numerous issues. If it had been deferred as a lien against future sale/inheritance, or didn't apply to commercial properties, or ...
- ikiris 3y ago
  Fixing the "problem" of people not moving out when the area prices go up is exactly the problem itself. The issue is availability of property flat out. As long as there's no incentive to make affordable property available, every actor wants their property values to rise and cares little for the negative effects it has on everything else. Those property taxes exist for good reason because you have to be able to pay for the services / infrastructure from it. Without those matching the area, problematic spirals occur.

bombcar 3y ago

Property tax on owner-occupied residential property everywhere should have a "replace it with a lien against the property" option - some states have it. The exact situation you're referring to caused Prop 13 in CA, and something has to be done before something like that gets enacted.

rcpt 3y ago
California has the California Tax Postponement Program which predates Prop 13 and specifically protects poor old grandma. Prop 13 wasn't passed as a law to help the unfortunate. It was anti tax hatred of the government. Jarvis wanted a "tax revolt" which is why all property in the state, even oil fields and golf courses, gets the tax break.
- zamfi 3y ago
  > Prop 13 wasn't passed as a law to help the unfortunate No, but it was sold to the public that way of course.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Exactly. And now it will be nearly impossible to remove.
  - rcpt 3y ago
    Jarvis was pretty upfront that he was "mad as hell" and wanted a "tax revolt". Today yeah the marketing is 100% that it's a welfare program for seniors.
no_wizard 3y ago
I can only find information on property tax liens as it relates to delinquency and non payment, not as an alternative model for deferring property taxes (I imagine until death of the owner or sale of said property) Do you have any more information? At first blush I can see how inheritance schemes would create massive loopholes in this for example.
tzs 3y ago

hotpotamus 3y ago

Old people in Texas get their property taxes frozen I believe at 65. But honestly it might be better for them to downsize into something more appropriate and perhaps free up the larger houses for families. My mother has basically just turned my parents' house into an eBay warehouse full of junk that she intends to sell one day. I can't say that I have any big problem with that at the end of the day, but if you think getting young families into housing is a more important goal for society, then it does seem like a waste. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sore about the 10% year over year thing, particularly when I hear about how Republicans run a low-tax state or that a wealth tax is unconstitutional/infeasible. I pay my wealth tax every year, but I suspect I'm too poor for the kind of wealth tax they mean. I can at least enjoy the irony.

conductr 3y ago
> Old people in Texas get their property taxes frozen I believe at 65. True but if you're turning 65 after you're tax bill has grown 10% for over a decade as your transitioning to your fixed income years; it's not a good thing just to freeze the tax bill. You might not have time to earn and save enough to cover the value it gets frozen at. It does help soften the blow for many though. > But honestly it might be better for them to downsize into something more appropriate and perhaps free up the larger houses for families. I wholeheartedly despise this line of thought, unless it's coming from their individual decision to downsize. You're basically treating the house like a commodity. It's a Home this person lived in, raised family in, hopes to continue hosting holidays in, where grandchildren can go to visit, etc. They should be able to use it until they decide to leave. On average, they only have another decade or so of life left anyway after their taxes get frozen at 65, let them enjoy their home.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  I live with them rent-free so it would probably go against my own interest as well to force them out via pricing.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  If you despise that thinking, then we need to regulate the housing market to discourage seeing housing as an investment as we see it today. Everyone expects, more or less, for real estate to climb in value but nobody wants to square that with these other emotional ideas attached to housing. It either is an asset or it’s a commodity as far as the market goes. If you want generational housing and for housing to be generally affordable something has to give. Kill it as an asset class and you get what you’re looking for. 10 years is a long time in the housing market. Assets sitting for 10 years under utilized is another way to think about it. These two ideas - that housing is an investment and that people shouldn’t be incurring tax burdens on them like this - do not square

ohhnoodont 3y ago

There are ways to address this problem, but in any case this is still ultimately a very good problem for property owners to have. Their property value has increased dramatically. Being forced to move is inconvenient, but you do so with a large bag of cash.

riversflow 3y ago
I would rather have my home than a bag of cash. I’m not even old, but I did grow up here and it has immense sentimental value to me. My grandma lived in her house for over 65 years, and died in it. I doubt she would have moved for anything short of multigenerational wealth.
compiler-guy 3y ago
That big bag of cash won’t buy a community where you know most everyone and have friends of decades or more whom you support and support you in return. Social connections take a long time to build and are hard to replace with cash.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Then you need to square values here. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Everyone wants their home to be worth more and more year over year but doesn’t want to incur any obligation for it. How do you square that with the idea that communities and social connections are more important? Look at what California did with prop 13. It’s a disaster by all accounts. We need to switch models not create more complicated exemptions around property taxation. Land Value Tax is more equitable and doesn’t have the intrinsic volatility and unpredictably of how we do property taxes today which is assessed in the unit value not the land and only punishes under utilization and vacant land holdings. This encourages building and to some extent smaller parcels of land per unit built
  - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
    Seems like you are opining for "everyone", including a huge number of retirees and families on very limited income like SS or disability. Yet somehow I dont think those two personas make any amount of the "everyone" posting here on HN

no_wizard 3y ago

> I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades Housing being seen as this generational I own it forever thing that Americans have doesn’t also square with the American narrative of housing as an investment. It’s one or the other. If you want housing to be seen as something that more or less “always goes up” but you can’t be taxed in the increased value then you are by nature distorting market dynamics you don’t see elsewhere. We need a land value tax instead it’s more fair and less volatile

sofixa 3y ago
> Another way to think about it: they’re selling at a premium well over they bought it for. Not necessarily. The fact that they're getting priced out right now via taxes on the estimated value of the house doesn't mean they can sell the house at that value (being forced to sell) and that they can find a cheaper alternative that works as well for them. So they can be in for a net loss, all things considered.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  If you can't sell the house for its assessed value you should appeal the assessment.
conductr 3y ago
> Another way to think about it: they’re selling at a premium well over they bought it for. It's not a premium. It's what housing costs. If they take their "premium" and buy the next house, their tax bill is unchanged (more or less). They have to actually go find a house that is much cheaper so they can afford the tax bill. More often than not, it causes them to move out of an area that has seen growth to an area that has not seen as much. This might be moving from Houston to a suburb of Houston, or moving from a suburb of Houston, to a small town 100 miles outside Houston. The correct "Other way to think about it" is like telling someone this; You bought this property when the neighborhood was worth nothing. You lived here for years when it was nothing. That might mean it was rural or crime ridden or whatever; but it was cheap and you could afford it. Good job sticking it out all those years and then letting "us" build it up around you. However, now that we've done that, we feel you are still a nothing if you can't afford the tax bill, so go find another rural/crime ridden area to live in. That's where you belong.

rcpt 3y ago

> growing 10% a year for probably the last 15+ years If I were 5x leveraged my net worth on a jackpot like that I'd probably cash out and move to an island to.

brewdad 3y ago
The property value may or may not be growing at 10% a year. My state (Oregon) has a tax cap similar to California's. Taxable property values were capped at their value in (I believe) 1979 and are only allowed to increase by 3% a year. My property market value could increase 10% but my taxes will only go up 3%. During the housing crash of the 2000s, my property lost about 40% of its value. My taxes still went up 3% every year because the gap between actual value and taxable value was so large. Depending on the structure of TX property taxes, it is certainly possible to have your tax bill increasing rapidly while property values are stagnant or even falling.

araes 3y ago

The property taxes should be placed proportionally towards those who are making money from owning properties and therefore have an ability to pay them. If grandpa and grandma are just living in their house in Texas and surviving on the last of the pension, they're not even vaguely in the same category as a property owner deciding which of the next condo buildings to buy.

jgr0007 3y ago

Thanks for posting this view: I had read the "Land Value Tax"-side of the argument before (and somewhat agree with it), but I hadn't seen someone post good reasons _not_ to support LVT. I think your reply - and your other replies - are pretty good reasons

Ntrails 3y ago
My view is to simply allow property taxes to be deferred until sale or death. Alternatives exist (eg taxable value set by what you paid not marked to market)
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  Income tax is inherently progressive and doesn't hit Grandma who lives on modest retirement and social security. Having one reducing reliance on property taxes
  - rcpt 3y ago
    Do want California's housing situation? Because that's how you get California's housing situation.
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      California's housing situation is because they are a highly desirable location and didn't build enough housing to meet demand not because they have an income tax.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Selling your house and losing your lower assessment is a huge reason not to sell your house. This make California’s real estate market less liquid then other real estate markets, since selling can have a huge extra cost vs not selling.
  - Ntrails 3y ago

screenoridesaga 3y ago

[dead]

rootusrootus 3y ago

10% is brutal. It should take a lot of effort to increase taxes by more than inflation. 10% year over year means something is broken. I’m glad we cap ours at 3%. And our community hasn’t collapsed for lack of property tax revenue yet. And we are a progressive state, while Texas is conservative. Would have thought it would work out the other way around but I guess not.

mistercheph 3y ago
Compare income tax rates! The coffers must be filled somehow!
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  That's valid, but 10% compounded yearly is going to quickly dominate any other taxes.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Their tax bill is rising 10% a year, depending on their property tax (if it is budget based or not), this could just be that their property is appreciating 10% faster than everyone else’s property. That means their equity is shooting through the roof. If it isn’t on a budget system, that could mean that their property (and possibly everyone else’s) property is appreciating 10% a year, or maybe they are adding levies or increasing the rate to fund new spending.

rawgabbit 3y ago

In Texas, although homes are valuable it is or was easy to lose your home to an HOA without a court proceeding. There is a famous incident in 2010 where a soldier lost his home and neither him or his wife knew anything about it. Supposedly the HOAs have been reined in but the whole concept of HOA in a state that prizes rugged individualism is beyond me. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/frisco-soldier-gets-home-back-after-hoa-foreclosure/2121160/ https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/frisco-soldier-gets-home-b...

FireBeyond 3y ago
There was another case, in Texas too, I believe where an older widow didn't pay a HOA due after her husband died. The amount was in the low hundreds (maybe $300). HOA liened her house, then forced sale. A local landlord put a bid that was found later to be about 70% under market (like $125,000 offered for a $400,000 home). The HOA Board voted to accept the offer and sold the house to this landlord. In the drama that unfollowed there was also this little nugget: the landlord was on the HOA Board, and was one of the ones who pushed for the forced sale, and then voted in favor of the Board accepting his short offer on the house. I don't recall the details of the outcome, although I believe some compensation was paid out to her.

tmaly 3y ago

I am curios what you consider pretty high property tax? I am in Connecticut and they just reassessed the property. I say a 42% increase in assessment. Our rates are 23 mil.

no_wizard 3y ago
If your property tax is 23 million dollars then your overall income would in proportion be well over 100 million a year to afford it reasonably no? To even own a home like that in the first place, you’d have to have a property worth over 100 million dollars if tax calculators are correct. I think this is outside the realm of what most people run into affordability wise and frankly at that level of income I’m willing to bet affording the property tax is much less of a concern
- tmaly 3y ago
  mil is mill rate = $1 per $1000 of assessed value.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    TIL! Never heard of it referred that way before
    - MagnumOpus 3y ago
      The correct term is "per mil" or "per mille" (‰), equivalent to "per cent" (%).

rcpt 3y ago

> I personally think it's awful to see elderly people getting priced out of a house they've owned for decades Do you actually have numbers on this? It's a huge talking point for the anti tax crowd but as far as I can tell there's no epidemic of house rich boomers being forced out of their homes.

wormius 3y ago

Your mention of "growth" makes me think about : https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/local/growth_coalition_theory.html https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/local/growth_coalition_theo...

zx8080 3y ago

How do the property prices behave? I mean, do they rise on par with the property tax? Thanks.

tzs 3y ago

Here in Washington state we have a pretty good system for helping elderly people not get forced out due to rising property taxes. If you are at least 61, and your disposable income is less than 70% of the median income for your county you get two forms of property tax relief: 1. The assessed value of your property is frozen at the value of the first year you signed up for the tax relief. If your disposable income goes about the threshold for a year but comes back down the next you won't lose your frozen assessment. If you go above the threshold for two consecutive years you do lose the freeze. When it comes back down again you get a new freeze at whatever the current assessment is. 2. You are exempt from all "excess property taxes" and part of the state property tax that is for schools. An "excess property tax" generally means voter-approved levies, such as local school taxes. If your disposable income is under 60% of the median income for your county but above 50% in addition to #1 and #2, you get: 3. You are exempt from regular property taxes on the maximum of $50k or 35% of the property value, but not more than $70k. For example for a $400k property you'd be exempt for $70k, so your regular property taxes would be computed as if your property was assessed at $330k. If your disposable is under 50% of the median income for your county, in addition to #1 and #2, instead of #3 you get: #4. You are exempt from regular property taxes on the maximum of $60k or 60% of the property value. For a $400k property this would mean regular property taxes would be based on a value of $160k. In my county the 70/60/50% thresholds are $65k/$56k/$46k. In my county a $400k assessed value home for someone below the $46k threshold would have an annual tax of $900, compared to around $3400 for someone not in the tax relief program. Here is a breakdown of the two (with some rounding): $300 $ 760 fire $240 $1000 state general $ 930 local school $140 $ 360 county road $100 $ 260 county $ 50 $ 130 stormwater management $ 40 $ 111 regional library $ 7 $ 18 PUD $ 2 $ 2 noxious weed Someone below the 70% threshold but not below the 60% threshold would pay about $2200, so still a big savings over the normal amount.