Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ichbinwiederda 2017 days ago
I am talking from experience. You are wrong on both counts.

What makes you think that poor people don't inherit property? There are lots of people with very low incomes but who own a house. And no they don't just sell it. Why sell the only house you have? Or maybe it is not their house but it is a piece of property that they have always owned and which they use as a garden or a yard or storage.

They don't sell it because they'd rather have a piece of land to enjoy then some money in the bank. It might be their only luxury in an otherwise frugal life.

1 comments

This only happens because our terrible land use is inflating the real estate market + terrible policy like prop 13.

In an LVT world, the value of land (overall-inflation-adjusted) should basically track the population, and virtually no one will own land they could no longer afford to buy.

That’s why LVT will never happen and is a dumb idea.

If a freeway exit gets built a block away from my house, my taxes will reflect the value of a Walmart or whatever instead of my house.

In which case you should sell your property and make bank on what Walmart would be willing to pay for it. (If you wouldn't make bank then your taxes wouldn't be prohibitively high)
Why would Walmart make a deal when they could just wait for or lobby the county to valuate your land at some excessive value and force a sale in distress?

LVT is just bad policy that sounds ok in concept. In my city, inner city residential property is near worthless once it falls below section 8 standards. The taxes are low too as result. With a LVT scheme, someone would cook up some “true” value subjectively, which has obvious potential for abuse.

Can't Walmart already do this? Property assessors already estimate the value of your property and the value of the land plays a part.
Generally no. Values are usually based on sales history.
Or the very questionable use of eminent domain that some municipalities engage in.