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Telesphorus posted:Is there really any practical way to address gentrification in the Bay Area? I guess I'm confused, because if there's a tech boom in an area that's expensive to begin with, then of course non-tech skilled people are going to be at a disadvantage. Here in San Diego you can get affordable housing downtown but you're having multiple roomies or living in a flophouse. Our county is really big and spread out, though, and we have a semblance of public transportation so it's not too bad. North County and San Diego proper are almost like 2 totally different cities though, transportation-wise.
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May 2, 2014 02:22
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themrguy posted:CA is the best place in the country to be a public employee. SFPD start at 80 grand, although that may just be the high cost of living. As a federal employee here in CA cost of living accounts for something like a 24% raise over the national average in my pay. I think living here is still more expensive than that, though.
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May 2, 2014 02:45
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ace8989 posted:Up here in North County, if you miss the bus, you're better off trying to find a ride from someone since most of the waits are 30 minutes. The buses down here are usually around 20 minutes depending on the neighborhood. I live in Imperial Beach and during college took public transportation to East Lake for school and then out to Pacific Beach for work and it was doable. You spent almost 3=4 hours a day doing it but it was doable.
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May 2, 2014 03:01
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Telesphorus posted:I've concluded that California's liberalism is largely a facade covering up libertarianism. Using property taxes to fund services in a state that is essentially run by speculators and profiteers is a lovely idea that just squeezes the middle class out of the housing market anywhere worth living. Jacking up the sales tax is a much better alternative.
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May 26, 2014 23:17
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FRINGE posted:Jacking up sales tax is a lovely idea that just squeezes the lower class out of every market. Jacking up the property tax is a much better alternative. There are so many people sitting on houses they wouldn't be able to afford the tax on if it wasn't for prop 13. Creating a giant new wave of foreclosures and new renters who now probably have to commute even farther is just dumb.
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May 27, 2014 02:14
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redscare posted:The sales tax is one of the most regressive forms of taxation. What is wrong with you? I don't love the sales tax either but it's better than creating another housing disaster.
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May 27, 2014 02:19
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nm posted:How did property tax create a housing disaster? The housing market is miserably inflated still throughout much of CA. It's not uncommon for people to have bought in the last 20-30 years to have a house that's now supposedly worth 10 times what they paid for it. Most of these people don't want to move and can't afford a ten times increase in their property tax because wages haven't increased hardly at all in comparison to cost of living in the last 10-20 years. Their families who stand to inherit the property aren't exactly swimming in dough either. If they realigned the property tax to current values a shitload of people would lose their homes simply on the tax increase alone. It's great if you want to sell, but a massive influx of people being forced to sell due to taxes would be bad for the economy and housing market overall.
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May 27, 2014 02:51
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Spazzle posted:So what? Reduce the overall tax rate and make everyone pay a fair share. Costs go up with inflation and residents shouldn't get out of paying for them just because they bought in at the right time. This is just one more way previous generations are stealing from the next ones. It isn't a "fair share" when the markets are wildly out of wack due to speculation and wages haven't risen to compensate. Your average Californian can't afford to buy a home already, and all you're advocating for is forcing the rest of the middle class who bought earlier to be forced out of their homes to satisfy your idea of neo-liberal fairness. Luckily prop 13 is a political third rail and idiots like you are few and far between.
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May 27, 2014 13:36
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Spazzle posted:Ahh yes, the well known neoliberal lunacy of having everyone pay taxes to sustain society. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people literally cannot afford to pay the rates you're demanding without pulling up stakes, selling their homes, and moving. Turning a bunch of middle class property owners into renters again and moving them further from city centers so the wealthy can swoop in and buy their property isn't a net gain for society. Sometimes issues are more complicated than "gimme money".
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May 27, 2014 14:43
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ComradeCosmobot posted:As opposed to today, where we merely deny the young the ability to become homeowners in the first place as the wealthy still swoop in and buy the property of the middle-class when the latter no longer have a need for it. People who think there's an income problem in CA probably aren't aware we already pay the 4th highest taxes in the nation, even with prop 13 the way it is. http://taxfoundation.org/article/state-and-local-tax-burdens-all-states-one-year-1977-2011 Being young and jealous of people who own property isn't a good enough reason to price them out of their housing.
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May 27, 2014 16:41
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Trabisnikof posted:I'll give you a hint: Its not property taxes preventing people from buying homes in California. No, it's rampant speculation driving the cost of houses up, which is why getting rid of prop 13 is a bad deal for Californians in general. The housing market is run by a bunch of crooks knowingly keeping the bubble as big as possible to profit, and using their inflated estimates to inflict what some people deem to be a "fair" system of taxation would just result in a shitload of people being forced to sell. It's nice if you want to take the windfall on your house and move out of state, but if you want to try to make a living here in the land of expensive everything prop 13 is one of the things that still makes that possible for many people.
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May 27, 2014 17:01
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Kaal posted:Prop 13 has been devastating for the Californian state and economy, and buoys up the price of property for the benefit of land speculators and commercial real estate. Which is precisely what it was designed to do, seeing as it was developed by anti-tax conservative nativists. Measure 5, in Oregon, has had a pretty similar effect, so it's not like there's something unique going on in California. When you make real estate into a tax shelter, people are going to take advantage of it. Devastating in a way where Californians are already paying the 4th highest taxes in the country even without it? I've got no problem removing it on commercial or business properties but forcing everyday homeowners to shoulder the burden of rampant overspeculation through taxes is bullshit.
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May 27, 2014 17:23
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Trabisnikof posted:Uh do you actually have a source for that? Because property tax is such a small portion of both total cost of home ownership and total tax burden that I doubt that low property taxes are actually making new home ownership viable. Even with your dumbass cherry-picked graph that primarily shows the housing bubble bursting and no other trends over 30-40 years, the prices are already almost back up where they were pre-burst. People who bought houses for around 100k in the 80s and early 90s cant afford to pay taxes on the 350-500k their houses have artificially ballooned up to and prop 13 insulates them from that bullshit. Why are a bunch of leftists arguing for a situation that lets speculators and capitalists drive middle class people out of their homes?
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May 27, 2014 17:28
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Trabisnikof posted:You realize there's something called inflation right? Lets use your example. Say they bought that house in 1987, so your theoretical 100k home would be worth at least 200k now due to inflation alone. Prop 13 only ensures that cities can never benefit from housing bubbles only deal with the impacts of housing crashes. Prop 13 allows property taxes to rise at the rate of inflation. It isn't a lock-in at one rate. It's also not a situation where people have houses worth double now, it's more in the neighborhood of 5-6 times. You're talking about a tax liability rising from around 1k/year to around 6k/year. 500 bucks a month for property tax is loving ridiculous for your average middle-class family.
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May 27, 2014 17:57
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Kaal posted:Right, your average middle-class family with a $900,000 property. I mean this entire line of conversation is rather absurd isn't it? Try your math again there, bub.
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May 27, 2014 18:21
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Pervis posted:Who has owned the property for something like 20 years to have such a low tax bill (and is sitting on a shitload of wealth because of it), who must now be subsidized by all the new owners near them who have to pay actual tax rates. It's not like the people paying lower property tax than they would if they just bought the house have access to less services. making GBS threads on new owners and younger folks to subsidize people who have actual wealth is a horrible policy. It also makes people not hate property bubbles, which they should unless they are planning on selling right then. That wealth only exists if you sell your house, you're acting like these people are sitting on bales of money, they aren't. I've got no problem eliminating it for commercial real estate but advocating tearing people out of their homes to get at their "wealth" is just sour grapes.
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May 27, 2014 18:23
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Xandu posted:So you're really just advocating for a lower property tax in general then, right? Nothing to do with prop 13 (in that it limits how much property tax can increase year to year). Absolutely. Binding state income to a form of taxation so intrinsically linked to developers and speculators is a terrible idea. The taxation system should be making it easier for working people to own property, not progressively harder, and the people arguing for the right to divvy up some working stiff's "wealth" because they resent their own tax rate need to look at what is really bothering them more closely. On the residential side, prop 13 absolutely protects average Californians. In a state where the median home price in in the 300-400k territory and the income per capita is somewhere around 30k, the idea that you need to find a way to squeeze another 500 bucks a month out of people who are mostly coming into the time of their lives where they are going to be on fixed or government-assisted income is just bullshit. It's a bunch of Boomer and old person-hating being perpetrated by a generation that resents that they don't have it as good as previous ones. Once again, the people who own most of the wealth have managed to create a situation where the actual poor are clamoring for a bigger share of the working poor's assets instead of trying to get it out of deeper pockets.
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May 27, 2014 18:32
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Xandu posted:I strongly suspect that the median income of home owners is substantially higher than 30k. I'm using this as a reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_income The income for homeowners is going to vary on when they bought the property and how many income-generating adults live in the property. Also, by region. Whichever way you slice it, owning property in CA is becoming more and more of a thing only rich folks can do unless you're somehow grandfathered in under prop 13. EDIT: Or you want to live somewhere super undesirable.
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May 27, 2014 18:45
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etalian posted:Yeah it's all apart hating old people who were smart enough to vote themselves a big tax cut, while muni services get underfunded not to mention all the other problems such as distorting the market due to the buy and hold mentality. The idea that Californians don't pay enough tax is a myth. We pay the 4th highest in the nation, even with prop 13. Also what's wrong with people who want to buy property and keep it?
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May 27, 2014 18:49
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etalian posted:It's a classic example of government intervention leading to market distortion, not to mention being yet another big subsidy for property owners especially for commercial properties. I've already said it should be revoked for commmercial properties and if you don't think the government should intervene to protect average working homeowners from the "free market" forces of speculation and development for profit maybe you should go over to the Libertarian thread and hang out.
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May 27, 2014 18:55
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I have to admit its rare to see the mentality trotted out that grandma should be forced into debt or forced to sell to reinforce an ideology but at least youre up front about it. Pretty much reinforces my belief that me and the majority of Californians have it right when we tell your ilk to get hosed and good luck on your repeal efforts.
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May 27, 2014 20:07
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Mayor Dave posted:Your oft-repeated claim that property tax in California is the 4th highest in the nation isn't true: Even a right-wing think tank rates California as 19th in the country. In fact, there's another study that puts California's property tax rates as at or below average. The second study is especially striking when looking at the difference between effective rates on residential property compared to commercial properties; California's effective tax rates on commercial and industrial properties are among the lowest in the nation. Correct. Property tax is low, but as a percentage of overall tax collected from people, CA still manages to rank 4th even with property tax being so low. http://taxfoundation.org/state-tax-climate/california The idea that prop 13 is somehow hamstringing CA's ability to collect taxes or fund programs is complete bullshit.
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May 27, 2014 20:45
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Leperflesh posted:Be honest with your terminology. I'm suggesting secured debt, e.g., a loan against equity, which is very very different from unsecured debt, e.g. credit card debt. With a secured loan, if worse comes to worst, Grandma can sell her house to pay off the HELOC. And I'm only suggesting this as a strategy for a person who is old enough that they're willing to effectively withdraw equity in their home in order to pay the cost of living; lots of old people do this in various ways, including just selling their home and moving into retirement or assisted care living situations. What you're talking about is forcing middle-class people to sell property they've spent their whole life accruing, and the people buying it aren't going to be middle class themselves. Your bullshit notion that somehow forcing even more working people out of the more desirable areas is CA will be a net gain for the middle class is hilarious, because I can tell you right now, the houses in CA are going to stay sky high as long as the pacific ocean is right there. The net gain of what you propse will be more vulnerable people moved further from needed services in the name of obtaining some kind of "fairness" for people who chose to buy into and expensive market knowing prop 13 already existed.
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May 27, 2014 20:56
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Mayor Dave posted:You ever think that if we could increase commercial and industrial property taxes, we could cut sales and income taxes? Government funding is ideally balanced on the three; with the state unable to adjust one of these rates, the other two had to climb to compensate. Prop 13 could be fixed and the end result could be an overall lower tax burden, but since morons like you (and the baby boomers sitting in those overvalued homes) don't want to risk anything at all it's never going to happen. Why would you have to force residential owners to pay more along with the commercial and industrial properties? Instead of trying to repeal prop 13, why not amend it to exclude those properties instead of making an issue about boomers who need to be forced out of their homes in retirement?
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May 27, 2014 20:58
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Kaal posted:Try your own math again, smarty-pants, it's not exactly rocket science. The California assessed property tax rate is 1% + county fees and variances, coming out to state-wide average of 1.25%. But California homes are assessed at significantly less than the market value (the conservative advocacy organization CalTax suggests that homes are assessed at 65.7% of FMV). The New York Times agrees, and concludes that the actual property tax rate in California averages at around .68%. If a family is paying ~$6,000 per year at .68%, then their house is worth ~$900,000. That's a rather expensive home for an "average middle-income family". Thanks for playing the "scary numbers" game all the same. I'll concede to your math being correct, but that study you linked has a pretty interesting conclusion: Conclusion Proposition 13 has protected taxpayers during its 31 years of enactment, and at the same time has ensured that there is a stable, yet growing budget base for local governments. More importantly, Proposition 13 did what it was supposed to do. Before Proposition 13, Californians would open their property tax bills and wonder if they could make ends meet. At that time, government revenue was directly tied to swings in real estate values. Today, homeowners still are the largest beneficiaries of Proposition 13, bearing the smallest share of the property tax burden. Most telling may be how many Californians still support the initiative. Approved in 1978 with 64.8 percent of the vote, a poll released in May 2008 showed that, 67 percent of likely voters responded that “passing Proposition 13 has turned out to be mostly a good thing for California.”7
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May 27, 2014 21:15
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Kaal posted:Because it's a foolish and broken idea that should be rejected entirely and replaced with a real tax system that encourages home ownership instead of property speculation. There are plenty of other states and countries out there that manage to do this without putting screws to young families and gutting state civil spending. Most places treat homes as deferred capital gains, where you pay the majority of your taxes at the point of sale - that way people aren't forced out of their homes, nor are they encouraged to speculate or engage in tax avoidance through dubious deed transfers. Except people were being forced out of their homes under that situation previously and spending hasn't been gutted, but ok. Citation: The study you yourself linked.
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May 27, 2014 21:19
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Kaal posted:It's not exactly shocking that an anti-tax conservative advocacy site would have lots of good things to say about Prop 13. After all, it makes them buckets of money. I cited it so that you wouldn't whine about the NYT's conclusion about California's actual property tax rate as liberal lies, not because I agree with every word they say. Frankly it says a lot that you're suddenly jumping onto their boat. If you're going to post studies as evidence maybe you should make sure they don't come to a conclusion opposite to the point you're trying to make?
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May 27, 2014 21:25
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Kaal posted:What the point that California assesses its home properties well below the market value? Or the fact that you can't do simple math unless the Koch brothers do it for you? It's pretty apparent that this is the case. Pay more attention or your perspective just looks foolish in addition to being greedy. Yes those drat greedy Californians who want to be able to keep the things they worked their entire lives for instead of sacrificing it upon the altar of speculation and wealth redistribution while still being taxed the 4th highest in the country. Those bastards. Apparently about 70% of Californians are also shilling for the GOP these days.
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May 27, 2014 21:33
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GaussianCopula posted:Prop13 is stupid and should be abolished because it creates a situation where people are incentiviced to make stupid decissions. Because a homeowner under prop13 profits very much from very high housing prices without incuring any costs in the form of higher taxes, he will try to delay or avoid anything that might reduce the pressure on housing prices, most commenly new housing developments. Thereby prop13 inhibits new developments and creates an uneven playingfield because for equal houses person A will pay much less then person B just because he owned it longer. If you don't think they're building houses in CA you must not live here.
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May 27, 2014 21:45
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Kaal posted:The "Grandma will be forced out of her home" narrative is definitely inane, and exists in a world where banks don't exist and it's impossible to refinance your home. If you home jumps $10,000 in value and you can't afford another $70 in annual tax, then talk to a credit union who will be happy to adjust your mortgage loan accordingly. Yes and seeing the average home jumps 8% a year, and the average home is around 400k, expect that number to at least double every year in perpetuity.
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May 27, 2014 21:56
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GaussianCopula posted:I'm mostly talking about the Bay Area where the housing costs are a real problem. Norcal and Socal are essentially different states in that regard. I haven't even been out of HS 20 years and there are already full cities and communities in multiple areas that used to be dirt covered mountains here in San Diego.
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May 27, 2014 21:58
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Blindeye posted:Maybe I'm crazy here, but aren't you two eating each other over extreme ends of the position? Run for office I would vote for you.
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May 27, 2014 23:34
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Telesphorus posted:Time to research the average homeowner's salary in California. I bet it's high enough for them to pay property taxes that help schools, aka "the common good" out! When you research income in CA I don't think you're going to find what you think you are.
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May 28, 2014 03:21
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FRINGE posted:You should never take the nail out of your foot, because your foot is hurting! The argument is that somehow prop 13 is putting CA in the poorhouse and it just isn't true.
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May 28, 2014 03:59
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GaussianCopula posted:As crazy as it sounds but the repeal of Prop13 would instantly lower the valuation because people would start selling, more demand etc. If you don't see the harm in forcing people to sell their homes with taxes they can't afford so the wealthy can swoop in and send the poors out further east I don't know what to tell you. It's amazing that everyone becomes a libertarian when they get a chance to gently caress someone over and profit out of the deal.
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May 28, 2014 13:48
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Trabisnikof posted:You've never actually proven the link between an increase in property tax rates and people being forced to leave their homes. You know why I think this is BS? Because all the other states in this Union manage to keep old people in their homes while having property taxes that rise with long-term home values. If you can find me another state where people are sitting on 400k houses they bought for 40k in the 70s where the median income for the state is about 30-40k a year then maybe you can use that state as a comparison. If you think getting rid of prop 13 is going to lower house prices, increase inventory and make it easier for people to buy homes, how to you expect to do that without forcing other people to sell?
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May 28, 2014 21:07
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Trabisnikof posted:It is incredibly dishonest to use medium income for the whole population to argue about the income of homeowners Landlords and speculative investors are more likely to be able to eat the tax increase. In any case, the law could be written or amended to account for those situations. I've said before I'm not against making it no longer apply to commercial or industrial properties, and that includes homes owned by investment firms or landlords.
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May 28, 2014 21:13
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cheese posted:I've...seen things you people wouldn't believe. The endless headlights of poor bastards driving from Tracy at 5am. 3 hour gridlock commutes burning away a mans soul. All those...moments...will be lost in time, like...tears...in rain. Time...to drive... There are people who work on the same base I do in Coronado that commute from hemet and corona daily. Look at that poo poo on a map it's nuts. Work on the base also starts at 6am. They wake up at 1am to get here to work preshift overtime at 4am.
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May 28, 2014 23:41
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FRINGE posted:Your point is lovely enough, stop making things up on top of it. You do understand "household" typically means multiple incomes, right?
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May 29, 2014 13:41
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Craptacular! posted:I just want to say the grandmother story definitely exists. My elderly mother owns two houses, living in one and renting the other. Rent and social security make up her only income. Her rent is among the most reasonable values in town when we look at Craigslist etc. If you raise property taxes on her dramatically, she will just have to raise the rent, which will probably squeeze out the people living there now. I'm not saying Mom should be considered a savior, but they're a nice family who couldn't believe they didn't have to live in apartments anymore. People invested in dropping Prop 13 aren't interested in the human element because they have such a boner for sticking it to boomers and corporations. They're fully invested in the "tax more" mentality even though CA is raking the taxes in at the moment. Really, they're just the next group of speculators looking to manipulate the CA house market and gently caress over the middle class for their own ideology. Prop 13 actually came into being because someone killed themselves over not being able to pay their property taxes and being forced to sell their home. It's keeping tons of people closer to their place of work and needed services in a state with overall lovely public transportation and frankly the argument that the state doesn't get enough money from everyone is bullshit. CA still needs its low-skilled workers to survive, and with the job market at that scale already swamped with cheap labor, prop 13 is one of the few things enabling families to remain in their homes in the face of pressure to sell from all kinds of different interest groups, whether they are property management speculators or neo-liberals towing the ideological line that somehow CA would be better if we moved all the poors further out and juiced them for a shitload more in taxes. It's basically a bunch of whiners complaining that it's not fair Californians came together and democratically decided to insulate themselves from volatile market forces and speculation. Obviously they should submit to their intellectual superiors who know what's best for them and be forced to sell their homes for the good of glorious redistribution instead of keeping the property in the family and obtaining more economic freedom. It sucks that corporations managed to get advantages along with homeowners when the measure passed, but nobody with a brain is going to vote against their own interests for the sake of neo-liberal fairness and gently caress themselves over.
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May 29, 2014 13:57
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