• @[email protected]
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    That sucks, but I also think the era of the single family home is ending. No regular person can afford these home prices. Even if you can afford a one time renovation on your $650,000 house does not mean you can afford a $90,000/year tax bill. Single family home values have gone off the charts and regular people cannot afford them. We need to increase housing supply.

    • @[email protected]
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      282 days ago

      They’re artificially high because concentrated wealth is buying up the supply. As of 2024 as much as 25% of the supply is being purchased by institutional investors in some markets

      • @[email protected]
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        32 days ago

        Spot on. Houses are cheap, though, but you’ll have to get something like sub 800 square feet and in the shitty part of town. A broken-down house for 120k isn’t the greatest investment unless you have a warchest or great job to improve it. Even then, you’ll be fighting comps around your house that aren’t improved.

        Single income isn’t cutting it with anything of quality or merit. You’ll have a roof over your head, but the timer starts. Improve or take a loss down the road.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 days ago

        Tbh, concentrated wealth wouldn’t be able to squeeze the market if there was a healthy supply. There’s a lot of issues with single family homes, but the tl;Dr is that they’re expensive because they are by FAR the least efficient way to house people, and it’s basically the only kind of housing that most cities allow by zoning area.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        This is it, and it’s been happening for years. I had a new home built in 2021 and it’s already appreciated by 25%, and periodically been valued even higher than that. I’m not selling, but that still seems crazy to me.

        Bonus points for the fact the newly built home and land purchase were about the same cost as it would have been to buy an old run down home in the area that would have needed a ton of work and updates. Few people seem to be building new housing, which in conjunction with the corporate housing acquisitions is driving prices way up.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 days ago

      So many people are cheering but these are exactly the sort of costs that will lock them out of housing or prevent them from improving a property.

  • @[email protected]
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    42 days ago

    “We do have the law to comply with,” Schwartzreich says. “It really puts us in the middle.”

    🤣🤣🤣

  • Gravitywell
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    2 days ago

    Yeah some serious boomer logic going on here.

    “We thought that if we kept the foundation and the outer walls of the house and we just took the roof off, it was our understanding that we were going to preserve our Save Our Homes and our homestead,” says Debbie.”

    “the renovations—removing the roof, adding a second floor —ultimately triggered a full reassessment of the home’s value. Under Florida law, once a property is deemed substantially improved, it can be treated as new construction, removing the protections that had capped the home’s assessed value for years.”

    • IninewCrow
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      2 days ago

      Boomer logic … “I want all the benefits, entitlements and supports of society and none of the responsibilities.”

      • @[email protected]
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        62 days ago

        Alright, so you’re a young gen z family and you buy your first home, which is all you can afford right now, you’re young and you’re starting your careers and your family.

        In 10 years, property values have increased dramatically, and you’ve had a child and you’re thinking about your second. Your careers are going well, and you think we should maybe get a bigger place for our expanding family. But oh no, there’s an unsustainable housing marketing bubble that refuses to burst, so you can’t afford a bigger place anywhere near your job. So you build UP, like they do in every multi-generational home culture, you expand your living space as your family expands.

        It’s not a crime or a moral failure to upgrade your home, and you shouldn’t jump at the opportunity to beat someone when they’re down just because you don’t empathize with this particular boomer homeowner.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 day ago

          This Boomer homeowner is why those Gen Z families can’t find homes. If your single family home is worth $4 million, that is the market telling you that that single family home should not exist. The land is too in demand, too close to jobs, too close to amenities etc. to have that lot hoarded by a single selfish person. You want to live in a single family home on a quarter acre lot? Fine. Do it on the edge of the city where the land is cheap. This women’s lost could provide homes for a dozen families, at prices that would be affordable to Gen Z families. Instead people like her vote to prevent such redevelopment.

      • thedruid
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        72 days ago

        Trumper logic, you don’t own what you own, and you need to either pay more or give it up., and fuck you us wanting nice things

        This is the type of shit destroying us as well.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 days ago

          I mean, bullshit strategies and apparent entitled attitude aside, she does have a point. $90k is an absurd property tax rate for a single family home.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 days ago

            That’s right! Why should rich people who own very high value assets have to pay more in taxes! That’s like woke dei socialism.

          • @[email protected]
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            282 days ago

            Did you see the photo in the article? It’s a ‘single-family home’ in the way a Mercedes SUV is a minivan.

            I mean, yah, housing is way too fuckimg expensive. But that is very definitely not a no-frills family home.

              • @[email protected]
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                52 days ago

                If it costs $90k for a $4 million home then a $1 million home would be taxed at $22.5k. That’s still half a years salary at median wages for an average priced home in many markets. Don’t let your hatred for rich people lead you to advocating for shitty policies.

                • @[email protected]
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                  32 days ago

                  a $1 million home [… is …] an average priced home in many markets

                  I’m going with this is the actual problem.

                  Also, your math assumes a flat tax rate, and any decent tax system is progressive. I don’t know how Florida’s works, but again, actual problems.

            • @[email protected]
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              32 days ago

              I don’t think it matters what the house looks like. That’s a ridiculous amount for any single home. I understand the desire to tax the rich but there are better ways to accomplish that than jacking up property taxes for everyone, especially when inflationary housing costs are a simultaneous concern.

              • @[email protected]
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                21 day ago

                The solution is to demolish the home and build multi-family housing there. Low density single family zoning has no place in an area where the land values are that expensive. Keep that kind of development on the urban fringe where it belongs.

    • @[email protected]
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      102 days ago

      They tried to apply the building code laws. In Florida, if you do a renovation and keep the foundation and one wall, you can build to the code at the time of construction. These “protections” never applied to assessment and tax.

      Many houses in that exact area have been bought for cheap and flipped using this work around. They end up with a modern house but can avoid having to spend extra for upgraded storm mitigation, plumbing, and electric.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 day ago

        Yeah that’s the same rule up here in Jersey. You can use it to maintain a structure that goes against the current building codes (say the ordinance makes it so you can have as much, you still can). To think that a tax collector wouldn’t be like “Hey, there’s an extra 1500 square feet, two bedrooms, and another bathroom on this house” is foolish though. And you presumably pulled permits for it all and put it right on their radar.

        The way to do it is piecemeal over several decades. Nobody is none the wiser.

    • @[email protected]
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      252 days ago

      At the same time, that absolutely is a life altering change. Even the biggest idiots don’t deserve to get their life upended. I don’t know what the right solution is, but I can extend significant empathy to “I did a dumb thing and I don’t know how to keep my home now without uprooting it”.

      I’ve only bought one home and it was recently. It was every bit as aweful as I expected but having seen what they are in for, they might not have the cash around nessicary to sell the home without getting scammed by predatory buyers.

      The entirety of real estate is so fucked

      • partial_accumen
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        32 days ago

        I’ve only bought one home and it was recently. It was every bit as aweful as I expected

        I’ve now bought two in my lifetime. I wouldn’t call either awful for my experience.

        What was bad about yours?

        • @[email protected]
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          12 days ago

          Lots of back and forth on inspection items. We wanted a lot fixed that should be fixed and they did do it as well as a lot of consolations, but if we had to sell this house right now, as I lost my job yesterday, I wouldn’t have the cash to be able to fix stuff that needs it for another inspection

          • partial_accumen
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            12 days ago

            Lots of back and forth on inspection items. We wanted a lot fixed that should be fixed and they did do it as well as a lot of consolations,

            That’s fair. That’s pretty common, and it usually sounds worse than it is. I think its also about setting expectations. If you have the expectation that you’ll be looking at a perfect house and simply agree to the sale price, then you’ll be surprised/frustrated. If you’re prepared for that back and forth with the horse trading on what you’ll fix vs what you won’t (similar to buying a used car), then its not too bad.

            but if we had to sell this house right now, as I lost my job yesterday, I wouldn’t have the cash to be able to fix stuff that needs it for another inspection

            You aren’t required to fix anything as the seller, however your buyer can walk away if it doesn’t pass inspection. If you have lots of buyers, this can be the right choice sometimes. However, if you only have one buyer you’re going to have to compromise. The middle ground here is that you can lower the cost of the house to cover the costs of the items needed to pass inspection. Buyers will usually go for that. So even if you don’t have cash in hand to fix things, you can still sell.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        A professional tax attorney built a $4.4M home and expected to keep their original valuation?

        That’s not a big idiot, that’s attempted tax fraud.

        • @[email protected]
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          52 days ago

          Even reading the summary - yes they had the Homestead Exemption to do exactlyy that. However they completely rebuilt their home to a much nicer one and thought they’d keep the Homestead Exemption. This worked correctly. In phase no sympathy for trying to cheat taxes

          • Photuris
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            42 days ago

            It would help if I’d actually read the article.

            A full night’s sleep, and I’m rethinking my comment. I was hasty.

        • socsa
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          32 days ago

          This is incorrect. In China nobody owns a home. They get a lease on it from the government. For wealthy urban Chinese this has meant they get lifetime ownership so far, but this is not guaranteed.

          Also if you are not born with the correct hukou then you are not allowed to purchase any valuable property at all.

          • Photuris
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            12 days ago

            Ok, so, apparently, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I did watch one YouTube video though, and suddenly I felt like an expert on China.

        • partial_accumen
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          42 days ago

          If you’re old and no longer have much of an income, you still have your home. If you become disabled,

          We already have this is many states in the USA. Its called the “Homestead Exemption”. Here’s an example from Ohio:

          “This is a statewide program, administered by County Auditors under rules established by the Ohio Legislature and the Ohio Department of Taxation. This allows senior citizens (65 or older) as well as permanently and totally disabled homeowners to reduce their real estate taxes by the amount equal to the taxes that would otherwise be charged on $25,000 of the market value of an eligible taxpayer’s homestead or residence. The homestead may include up to one acre of land. Under the changes made by the Ohio Legislature and beginning with applications for tax year 2014, new participants in the program will be subject to an income test to be eligible.”

          So matter how big your house is (as long as its on one acre of land or less and you have an income $$75k/year or below) you only get charged as though the house is worth $25k, which I think would obviously be a very low tax bill.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 days ago

            They qualify under the local homestead law.
            But because that limits year over year increases (which I consider reasonable) and is reassessed after mayor upgrades (which they did) they now have a huge jump in taxes.

        • @[email protected]
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          82 days ago

          I agree, we should replace property taxes with very large income and wealth taxes. First we can end property taxes and then we can implement guaranteed income so people who become disabled can afford to maintain their homes.

          • @[email protected]
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            The thing about yearly property taxes is they often go to the city/municipality and that’s how they pay for things.

            The city doesn’t charge income tax, that’s a state/province/fed level type thing.

            We’d need a new way for cities to collect taxes themselves, or a new system to properly and fairly distribute taxes from the incomes to the cities/municipalities where they live.

            Definitely doable, but it’s a bit different than just raising income taxes.

            • partial_accumen
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              32 days ago

              Some municipalities may also have an income tax (completely separate from state or federal income taxes). Other states have much larger sales taxes.

                • partial_accumen
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                  22 days ago

                  Where I am we have fairly low property tax and a small municipal income tax. So it splits the burden equally. If you live outside of a municipality, there will be a small income tax to support your public school district. This is also on top of State taxes income taxes and Federal income taxes. Sales taxes are also a thing at the state and city level. Honestly, I don’t feel overly taxed with the total amount of money I pay in taxes. I receive the benefits of society. This is even for services I don’t consume, but I want the services available to my neighbors that may need them, such as housing assistance, elder care, supplemental nutrition, etc.

  • @[email protected]
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    31 day ago

    I’m not entirely unsympathetic since property values have skyrocketed ridiculously mostly due to the super rich and hedge funds buying up housing like it’s candy.

    However, these people got an assessment for doing some renovations without replacing the walls or a major overhaul of the property, then promptly added a whole second floor to the building when they said they were just replacing the roof. They gambled that the assessors wouldn’t take note and lost.

  • @[email protected]
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    Mao was right about landlords

    That being said these people can afford to pay this, their house is millions of $s.

    • @[email protected]
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      222 days ago

      If the house you’ve been living in for ages goes up in value, that doesn’t turn into money you can spend.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 days ago

        Unless you’re my brother, who spends untold amounts of money renoing various portions of his house, then has it reassessed so he can add to his home equity-based line-of-credit, so he can have more money to do more renos ad infinitum. I mean he’s done this a dozen times (or more).

        It’s a never ending circle of financial death over there.

        • @[email protected]
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          31 day ago

          There’s a whole cottage industry dedicated to convincing people their kitchen and baths need to be remodeled to the studs every 10/15 years, windows need replacing, new siding, all sorts of crazy shit, just get yourself a home equity line, it adds to the value after all! But that just means you’re in more debt to own what you already owned. Home equity lines of credit can be super useful but people use them like lotto tickets.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 days ago

        No but it does turn it into a financially valuable asset which they can sell for a profit. Emotionally I feel for them, I wouldn’t want to sell a house I’ve investment time and energy into. But they’re FAR better off than a lot of people on a purely financial basis.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 days ago

          It’s the same reason Elon is a multi-billionaire, even though he doesn’t have that as “spending money”

      • @[email protected]
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        42 days ago

        Eh, I mean it kinda does. They’re complaining about having to 91k dollars of tax for nearly 4 million dollars of equity. They could just get a tax free loan guaranteed by their equity and receive millions to live off for the rest of their lives, paying the loan back when they sell.

        They just want to have their cake and eat it. They like the free equity, they just don’t want to pay the taxes associated with it.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 days ago

        I was living in a neighborhood that gentrified and my rent went up a “life altering” amount. I had to move to a different, shittier neighborhood and had nothing to show for it. If a property owner has the same thing happen, they may be forced to sell, but they will get a massive windfall. Renters get nothing besides a kick in the butt.

  • @[email protected]
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    81 day ago

    Yearly property taxes never made sense to me. So you supposedly bought and own something, except if you don’t pay the government then they can just take it away.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 day ago

      It’s depressing that we can never truly own even the land we live on. How many seniors lose it all over property taxes? FFS, we have auctions to rape these poor people.

    • @[email protected]
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      91 day ago

      I don’t know about where you live, but here the property taxes pay for the locality’s services: streets, parks, city employes salaries, snow removal, garbage removal, summer camp, community center, etc. So this taxe is very useful. Now, it needs to be well managed and it’s a whole other topic.

    • @[email protected]
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      131 day ago

      Taxes are the price of civilization. You pay taxes on your land, because if you don’t, a gang of armed thugs will come and steal it from you and bury you under it.

      • @[email protected]
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        51 day ago

        I see your point for general taxes, but if the federal and state government are already taking your income and many other things how come they’re also taking so much in property tax? Many other countries seem to be able to protect you and give you what you need without property tax.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 day ago

          Because collecting only one type of taxes would cause massive economic distortion and would inevitably burden people unequally. Different taxes have different properties. Some hit certain groups harder than others. Some hit certain types of businesses harder than others. Far better to have a whole series of modest taxes than one form of ruinous taxation. Do some countries not have property taxes? Yes, but they’re small tax havens that aren’t really a good model for the vast majority of nations.

          But as far as optimization, consider some examples.

          Property taxes also work best at the local level because the spending needs of municipalities don’t swing heavily with economic conditions. The federal government has spending needs that vary wildly with the economic cycle. During a recession, the federal government needs to massively ramp up its spending. But at a local level, a recession doesn’t mean you suddenly need twice the number of firefighters. Property taxes are pretty steady over time, so they’re a good match for the needs of local government. The federal government’s income tax revenue goes down during a recession, but that’s ultimately fine, as the federal government controls the currency. They can afford to sustain massive deficits during bad years and make it up with surpluses in the good years. (Well, if the federal government was functioning as designed.)

          Income taxes also make more sense for government entities whose jurisdictions are difficult to avoid. If you fund your city entirely with income tax and no property taxes, you may find your community completely overrun by retirees who want services like anyone else, but don’t actually earn much taxable income to pay for them. If you fund your city entirely through a large sales tax, people can just drive and shop outside of city limits. It’s much harder for people to avoid federal income tax simply by moving house. Unless you’re leaving the country entirely, you’re not avoiding the reach of federal income taxes. (And sometimes even that doesn’t cut it!)

          But property taxes? The only way to avoid those is to not live in the city at all. Which, from the city’s perspective, is fine. If you don’t live in the city, then you’re not putting much burden on the city’s infrastructure and services. But if you want to live in the city and enjoy all the benefits that come with living in a city, you have to pay the city’s property taxes.

          In short, different taxes have different properties, different benefits and drawbacks. Funding a society through a diverse arrangement of taxes allows much more efficient optimization of these taxes. It’s a much more intelligent system than just trying to fund it all with one big dumb tax of a single type. That’s more the way of Medieval head taxes, not modern nation states. We used to have simple tax systems. We stopped using them because we realized there were better ways to do it.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 days ago

    You’d think a real estate attorney would know better.

    Anyway, property –with the improvements they made, has appreciated over $163,000 on average every year since they bought it. Ya, $75k more than they planned on sucks, but they can take it from the value of the house no?

    • @[email protected]
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      42 days ago

      I don’t know. I mean, there’s a good chance that the original purchase price of the house is almost paid off, but having a sudden $76,000 increase in your bills is going to be tough on anybody. Unless they have made some very bad financial decisions outside of this, that probably is more than double their monthly mortgage.

      And as somebody who has an inordinate amount of equity in a house they purchased far too recently for the amount of equity that I have, it is not exactly easy to pull money out of a house as a homeowner, And even if they do take loans to pay the tax burden, that doesn’t mean that the money has been handled. It just has taken today’s problem and pushed it off for tomorrow.

      I’m not attempting to justify them. I’m just examining their side with the slightest benefit of the doubt.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 days ago

        They just did an expensive Reno…. None of your comment makes any logic given that they just did an expensive Reno, they could afford to throw money around.

        • @[email protected]
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          Maybe, maybe not.

          Renovation loans exist, and are often secured against the property (backed by the increased value or against equity).

          So there’s a real possibility that they only increased their debt and monthly expenses without having the liquid capital for the unexpected tax payments

          • @[email protected]
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            32 days ago

            Sucks to suck if that’s the case. If they truly couldn’t afford this, they should have been more diligent about researching the potential ramifications of making these renovations. That goes even more so for someone with experience in the field of real property.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 days ago

    no sympathy for people living in florida or any disaster prone area, that knowingly there is a chance that its expensive. just like the wildfires in california, where all the rich people were crying.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 days ago

      until disaster hits your area.

      And someone will shit on it because one rich person lives within 5 miles of you, and calling you a stupid fuck for living there.

      and oh god will the tears of indignation flow from you then.

  • @[email protected]
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    502 days ago

    The homeowners have two options, and both options suck.

    • sell
    • don’t sell

    Both alternatives carry costs. But they own a home worth 4.4mil and have to pay 2% of that each year. That’s pretty low.

    • @[email protected]
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      162 days ago

      Renters have two options:

      • get fucked
      • move (and get fucked)

      At least if the homeowner sells they get the windfall.

    • @[email protected]
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      222 days ago

      Hmm. So if you buy a house in your 20s, by the time you retire, you would have bought the equivalent of 2.5 houses. One for you, one from the government for the privilege of living in the one you bought, and half a house worth of interest to the bank.

      That’s an insane amount of money.

        • @[email protected]
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          122 days ago

          I mean, if the US government wasn’t so stingy about, y know, actually spending on it’s people instead of the military, tax cuts for billionaires and buerocracy, it would be fine imo. Here, in CZ, I’m mostly fine with the taxes since we’re a pretty safe country with decent healthcare. Despite the country still having a huge corruption problem and housing market in flames, it still somehow has higher living Ng standard than the US.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 days ago

            100% we should complain about how our money is used, and how much is paid by whom. But that’s a different complaint.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 day ago

            Your property taxes don’t go towards those things though. Maybe a bloated police force, but that’s still usually funded via earned income tax.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 days ago

        Don’t you pay tax also for the purchase itself? Might be anothe 10%

        And the yearly tax, is it based on purchase cost or current value? The later would be harsh seeing how they increase.

        • Horsey
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          32 days ago

          There’s no tax on buying property, however, property taxes are a percentage of your property’s assessed value. In my locality, the assessed value has a lot of deductions whereby my 400K house is only taxable as 32K in value, so I pay 3K/year in taxes.

          I can’t speak for Florida, but if it’s like Arizona, their property is worth a lot more than 4M if their total tax burden is 90K/year.

  • @[email protected]
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    262 days ago

    It’s always funny when looking at the tax-system in the US from an EU perspective. Americans looking at any receipt they get in an EU country and immediately pointing out the huge VAT tariff.

    Then one only needs to point to the property tax in the US.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 days ago

      Sales taxes are regressive. People who spend more money on services and less on goods are typically wealthier. Sales taxes hit the poor the hardest. Whereas the property tax on a multi unit building is typically a better rate for each family than a single family home.

      If you read the article these people tried to abuse a loophole that had kept their propery taxes capped for years and they failed miserably. They tried to keep just enough of the home to avoid the value of the home being reassessed for taxes. But they added an entire second story and that triggered the reassessment. Essentially they thought they could cheat and build more home than they could afford to pay for.

  • @[email protected]
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    302 days ago

    Okay I know it’s not such a popular opinion but I’m still on the notion that you shouldn’t pay taxes for holding on to the place that you live.

    Yeah yeah local governments need income and all that and their house is assessed over 4 million dollars and many people can’t even afford a home at a 10th of that and they should have known and blah blah blah but come on, commodified housing is bad enough. Paying what amounts to a rent to the state just to hold on to the property, actual repairs and upkeep and other naturally occurring costs aside is insane.

    Tax the sales of property. Tax the legal transfer of control of LLCs that “own” property. I’m not even saying never charge property tax on properties not occupied by the owner, but you should be able to have a house to live in without paying the state for the privilege of them not taking it.

    • TonyOstrich
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      72 days ago

      My alternate take. This is a prime example of why housing shouldn’t be viewed as an investment. If the value of a home outstrips the rate that wages increase then isn’t this story always the logical conclusion?

    • partial_accumen
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      2 days ago

      Tax the sales of property.

      I’m thinking of the untended consequences of that policy. The first I can think of is people simply would never sell their houses because they’d get hit with enormous taxes (large enough to equal decades of property taxes). Home owners would simply rent out the houses when they need/want to move away. So home ownership for those living in the homes would collapse. Further, city services would likely starve from lack of funding because there would be no little revenue and what revenue they got would be very sporadic.

      but you should be able to have a house to live in without paying the state for the privilege of them not taking it.

      There are absolutely houses like that (in the USA at least). Those houses not in cities with police and fire protection, roads, sidewalks, snow plowing, public libraries, or any other kind of city services. If you want the benefits of a society someone has to pay the bill. Alternatively, some cities have income taxes or very high sales tax. Both of which you’d pay to live in the city.

      Who are you suggesting paying the bill for your consumption of city services besides you?

    • @[email protected]
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      12 days ago

      What home steading a home was supposed to be for. I remember in Texas you could homestead up to 10 arces and not have to pay taxes on that. I totally agree. At the very least taxes shouldn’t go up just because the value did. Only time your taxes should go up unless you sell the home, then tax you that amount.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        This is similar to the property tax structure in California.

        You get a property tax rate on the purchase price, then it only goes up 2% a year or inflation (whichever is lower).

        It makes it pretty impossible to be taxed out of your house. It has downsides though because it applies to commercial real estate and landlord properties as well.

    • @[email protected]
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      332 days ago

      What in the libertarian garbage is this? Do you like roads, schools, libraries, parks, garbage pickup, etc etc etc. Property taxes pay for these things.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 days ago

        I think you’re misunderstanding the post… He’s saying property taxes are a necessary source of government revenue (that we all benefit from) but you shouldn’t have to pay it if it’s a primary residence and there should be a different structure or revenue stream. I agree with that, since a property tax is basically a wealth tax on ordinary people because it is a tax on their single biggest asset.

        • partial_accumen
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          22 days ago

          He’s saying property taxes are a necessary source of government revenue (that we all benefit from) but you shouldn’t have to pay it if it’s a primary residence and there should be a different structure or revenue stream. I agree with that

          Where do you want the revenue needed to fund the city to come from if not from property owners?

      • @[email protected]
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        92 days ago

        But those things do not scale with the (alleged) value oft the property, but with things like property size, number oft occupants, curb length etc. Or could even be billed at actual cost (your garbage example).

        • @[email protected]
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          12 days ago

          But your taxes don’t scale with the alleged value of the property either. There are caps and protections in place. That’s why they were only paying $15k previously. And they didn’t just repair their old house, they put an entire second story on it. Hence the reason they triggered the “major improvements” clause.

        • @[email protected]
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          132 days ago

          yet even if your family doesn’t use these services you benefit from safe roads, educated workers, green spaces for all to have access, and public sanitation - you LITERALLY BENEFIT FROM EVERYTHING but don’t want to pay.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 days ago

      Why not tax the property for all value above X. Where X is some amount over the average or median property value. That way, if you can afford a luxury home you pay some tax on it.

    • @[email protected]
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      92 days ago

      You’re planning to tax on events like sales and hope there’s enough churn to still fully-fund the things property tax provides for? That’s really hard to make a case for.

      Given bungalows rarely deliver a town enough to recoup on providing and maintaining services anyway, you’re starting with a very tricky goal to maintain. Detroit happened, and that was with consistent, recurring payments.

      Then you want to put a home sales tax on that is big enough to pay the back taxes plus borrowing cost to hold the debt and you think people are gonna go for this? What if you’ve owned your home 15 years, paid no taxes on the infrastructure maintenance, ambulance fire or police service, mail service, street lights and pavement, and then your house burns down? You could very well owe more than the lot is worth alone. What do we tell the homeowner about that? The town can’t absorb the loss given margins are so low.

      Nah. I don’t think you can sell that idea to the voters.

  • Chris
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    1652 days ago

    They basically rebuilt their home and are sad it’s appraised at market value.

    That’s at least what I got from it.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        If it’s that big of a problem for their life, why not just sell the house and be multi-millionaires? It’s a non-story. Maybe they should’ve taken that into consideration.

        • @[email protected]
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          142 days ago

          So, the house is now valued at 6x the original value? If they sold it at only 4-5x it would still be a huge win.

          • @[email protected]
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            82 days ago

            They want the house, not the money. Now they’ll be forced to sell to some rich person. Doesn’t sound like a win to me

            • @[email protected]
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              22 days ago

              Maybe it is different for me because I moved every couple years growing up. I have lived in 15 places in my life, and the most recent is a record of over a decade.

          • @[email protected]
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            132 days ago

            Their taxes were grandfathered in because they bought the property at a much lower value, the house was already worth a lot more than they paid for it.