| > In fact, you're benefiting through increasing home values (for which you are not taxed due to Prop. 13) This is completely untrue. I have a house in 94087 where I live about 7 months/year (the other 5 months are in Tel Aviv, where it's also very expensive!) I own the house, bought in in 1989. I don't benefit at all from increased house prices. It just makes everything more expensive. And even under Prop 13, my property tax goes up 2% a year. That's more than inflation. I don't benefit at all from the "increased value" in my house. If I could, I'd tear down the house and build a 2-family house on the property. But even if zoning laws allowed it, the house would be reassessed at current market value, and it wouldn't be worth it to pay $32,000/year in property taxes alone. (I've looked into this to the extent of hiring a real-estate lawyer to see if it's feasible). If there were no prop 13, people would be forced out of their homes because specu-vesters would drive the prices up making just the taxes affordable. The solution is to BUILD MORE HOUSES. Build apartment buildings. Close by so people can walk or take existing mass transit to work. And allow people with single family homes to tear them down and build 2-family homes without being reassessed. |
Prop 13 also induces people to not sell their property, or convert properties into more units like you, so there are less available units on the market, which increases prices even further.
For example go look at SF or LA vs Miami on Redfin and see the stark difference in how many units are for sale at one time.
Higher property taxes encourages people to sell their properties if it's not economically worth it anymore to hold the property and give it to people who would actually use it. And it also encourages them politically to build more housing so their property tax bill does not go up too much.