5 ms·

I don't know if things work the same way in California as they do up here in Washington, but up here I see a large number of complaints from current home owners

by tzs 3y ago

I don't know if things work the same way in California as they do up here in Washington, but up here I see a large number of complaints from current home owners about rising house prices. That's because rising house prices means rising property taxes.

ozzydave 3y ago
Unfortunately prop 13 broke that dynamic, among other ill effects.
- kuchenbecker 3y ago
  My neighbors bought their house in 1975, pay $3k in property taxes. I pay 9k in property taxes. If I bought today I'd pay 17k. I will not get a larger house because my property taxes would triple if I wanted another bedroom. A marginally larger house is not worth the marginal cost to move. And with my 2.8% refinanced mortgage and 60% equity, and current rates today, there's no chance I'd sell. It's a dream of mine to build a custom home, I can afford it, but I'm not willing to put up with a multi year struggle to get a house approved.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    And then you have probably lots of people who didn't move to better jobs because it meant they'd buy a new home and all the people who couldn't move to a new, better job because people already there aren't selling even when they are retired because they want to keep that sweet property tax rate locked in. Prop 13 is poison for the economy.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > My neighbors bought their house in 1975, pay $3k in property taxes. I pay 9k in property taxes. If I bought today I'd pay 17k. What neighborhood? The largest gap I've been able to find is ~2.5x, the one you mention is more than 5x.
    - kuchenbecker 3y ago
      Oh I lied, they pay $1300 per year on 117k assessed value for a home purchased in 1975 for 50k. I bought my house, substantially the same, for 800k, currently worth about 1.5M. I'm in Pleasanton.
    - snotrockets 3y ago
      There are maps. And in South Berkeley, I pay almost $30k/year. Neighbor pays $3.5k. https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/
      - jjav 3y ago
        > https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ Thanks for the link, I had seen that site before but forgotten about it. Have you confirmed that 3.5k number with the neighbor, or is it from the website? I see a few large errors on that site for my neighborhood, so can't really trust it. There is one house similar to mine shown as paying less than one fifth property tax. But if I look up the tax history in zillow, it's not true, their property tax history is quite similar to mine. Then there are two interesting cases, where their property tax is shown as minuscule, less than $1k. And interestingly, zillow agrees. But here's the interesting part: looking at the history in zillow, it shows that both these houses were paying around $9K in property tax and then suddenly one year it dropped to $900. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is any mechanism in California property tax code that makes it possible for the property tax to drop like that. I know one can request a revision if the market drops significantly (like in 2008) but this is not that, it dropped to 1/10th of previous value! And these are all very similar homes from a mass produced builder, they're all within a handful percentage of each other in estimated market price. None of the other houses in the neighborhood dropped in assessed value like that. So I'm guessing it is just a typo or otherwise bad data from the county, feeding into both zillow and this website. I should add: The $900 property tax shown is quite a bit less than the property tax on year one when these houses were built in the 90s. Which seems quite impossible, so I conclude the data is wrong.
        3y ago
cheriot 3y ago
California loves its Reagan era laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Prop 13 was 1978. Jerry Brown had been governor for 4 years.
  - cheriot 3y ago
    oh, good point
tptacek 3y ago
It's a huge problem here: the hottest areas of Chicagoland have the best schools, in large part because property tax levies fund the schools, which sets up a vicious cycle: voters will approve arbitrary levy increases for the schools because they assume (justifiably) that they're getting the money back in house values. Their kids graduate, they don't care about the schools anymore, so they sell their (appreciated) house and move to a bigger house or a loft or whatever. But at some point --- we crossed this point 20 years ago --- the schools spend more on your kids than you will pay in property taxes in the window of time your kids are in schools. I'll have to live in Oak Park for at least 12 more years to pay D97 and D200 back, and my kids are both in their 20s. Meanwhile, property taxes are being driven up so much that the only rational buyer for a house is a family planning to put kids through our schools, because all the lots are SFZ freestanding houses, and the property taxes are so high.
- jerlam 3y ago
  At least it sounds like you're funding good schools in Chicago. California has a bizarre problem where the most expensive areas to live cannot fund their schools. Cupertino, the city of Apple's HQ, median home selling price over 2 million dollars - relies on state funds to pay for its public school district, since local property taxes aren't enough: https://siliconvalleythings.medium.com/why-do-silicon-valley-schools-have-so-little-money-per-child-3a69612e18c https://siliconvalleythings.medium.com/why-do-silicon-valley...
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    Chicago has one of the worst pension problems in the country largely on the back of public employee pension underfunding, including the teachers union.
loeg 3y ago
That is more or less not how it works in Washington. Property tax is divided proportionately across owners by property valuation. If all prices rise by the same percent, tax assessed per property in absolute terms does not change, and as a percentage of price, actually falls. Only if your property value rises faster than the average or if the government assesses more total tax does your property tax go up.

by tzs 3y ago

ozzydave 3y ago

Unfortunately prop 13 broke that dynamic, among other ill effects.

kuchenbecker 3y ago
My neighbors bought their house in 1975, pay $3k in property taxes. I pay 9k in property taxes. If I bought today I'd pay 17k. I will not get a larger house because my property taxes would triple if I wanted another bedroom. A marginally larger house is not worth the marginal cost to move. And with my 2.8% refinanced mortgage and 60% equity, and current rates today, there's no chance I'd sell. It's a dream of mine to build a custom home, I can afford it, but I'm not willing to put up with a multi year struggle to get a house approved.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  And then you have probably lots of people who didn't move to better jobs because it meant they'd buy a new home and all the people who couldn't move to a new, better job because people already there aren't selling even when they are retired because they want to keep that sweet property tax rate locked in. Prop 13 is poison for the economy.
- jjav 3y ago
  > My neighbors bought their house in 1975, pay $3k in property taxes. I pay 9k in property taxes. If I bought today I'd pay 17k. What neighborhood? The largest gap I've been able to find is ~2.5x, the one you mention is more than 5x.
  - kuchenbecker 3y ago
    Oh I lied, they pay $1300 per year on 117k assessed value for a home purchased in 1975 for 50k. I bought my house, substantially the same, for 800k, currently worth about 1.5M. I'm in Pleasanton.
  - snotrockets 3y ago
    There are maps. And in South Berkeley, I pay almost $30k/year. Neighbor pays $3.5k. https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/
    - jjav 3y ago
      > https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ Thanks for the link, I had seen that site before but forgotten about it. Have you confirmed that 3.5k number with the neighbor, or is it from the website? I see a few large errors on that site for my neighborhood, so can't really trust it. There is one house similar to mine shown as paying less than one fifth property tax. But if I look up the tax history in zillow, it's not true, their property tax history is quite similar to mine. Then there are two interesting cases, where their property tax is shown as minuscule, less than $1k. And interestingly, zillow agrees. But here's the interesting part: looking at the history in zillow, it shows that both these houses were paying around $9K in property tax and then suddenly one year it dropped to $900. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is any mechanism in California property tax code that makes it possible for the property tax to drop like that. I know one can request a revision if the market drops significantly (like in 2008) but this is not that, it dropped to 1/10th of previous value! And these are all very similar homes from a mass produced builder, they're all within a handful percentage of each other in estimated market price. None of the other houses in the neighborhood dropped in assessed value like that. So I'm guessing it is just a typo or otherwise bad data from the county, feeding into both zillow and this website. I should add: The $900 property tax shown is quite a bit less than the property tax on year one when these houses were built in the 90s. Which seems quite impossible, so I conclude the data is wrong.
      - 3y ago

cheriot 3y ago

California loves its Reagan era laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

AlbertCory 3y ago
Prop 13 was 1978. Jerry Brown had been governor for 4 years.
- cheriot 3y ago
  oh, good point

tptacek 3y ago

It's a huge problem here: the hottest areas of Chicagoland have the best schools, in large part because property tax levies fund the schools, which sets up a vicious cycle: voters will approve arbitrary levy increases for the schools because they assume (justifiably) that they're getting the money back in house values. Their kids graduate, they don't care about the schools anymore, so they sell their (appreciated) house and move to a bigger house or a loft or whatever. But at some point --- we crossed this point 20 years ago --- the schools spend more on your kids than you will pay in property taxes in the window of time your kids are in schools. I'll have to live in Oak Park for at least 12 more years to pay D97 and D200 back, and my kids are both in their 20s. Meanwhile, property taxes are being driven up so much that the only rational buyer for a house is a family planning to put kids through our schools, because all the lots are SFZ freestanding houses, and the property taxes are so high.

jerlam 3y ago
At least it sounds like you're funding good schools in Chicago. California has a bizarre problem where the most expensive areas to live cannot fund their schools. Cupertino, the city of Apple's HQ, median home selling price over 2 million dollars - relies on state funds to pay for its public school district, since local property taxes aren't enough: https://siliconvalleythings.medium.com/why-do-silicon-valley-schools-have-so-little-money-per-child-3a69612e18c https://siliconvalleythings.medium.com/why-do-silicon-valley...
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  Chicago has one of the worst pension problems in the country largely on the back of public employee pension underfunding, including the teachers union.

loeg 3y ago

That is more or less not how it works in Washington. Property tax is divided proportionately across owners by property valuation. If all prices rise by the same percent, tax assessed per property in absolute terms does not change, and as a percentage of price, actually falls. Only if your property value rises faster than the average or if the government assesses more total tax does your property tax go up.