[okasaki]

If the value of the land goes up with increased economic activity, but you're not economically active enough to continue living in the area, how is it unreasonable to be expected to sell?

The other side of every "family was forced to sell" is "another family was very happy to move in".

[Shocka1]

I agree with you mostly, even though it's somewhat heartless and maybe too black and white. I'm from an area where this exact scenario is happening to a lot of home owners.

There is a point where I think it's okay to factor an unexpected large housing market increase into the equation. To raise a community's property tax unrealistically because a mass influx of buyers are willing to overextend their credit doesn't make much sense to me.

Also, I think this applies even more to our current situation and the fact that a lot of these communities had nothing to do with the politically charged economic decisions our politicians made with close to zero debate, and ultimately, the economic fallout it has created.

In my home state in the Midwest I have always thought a better way to go about it in the future would be to factor median salary and wages into the mix. That, along with an unrealistic housing market increase. I'm not sure what unrealistic would be defined as, but median value increasing 2x in five years is definitely unrealistic. At the very least things like this should be debated.

[actually_a_dog]

What's the purpose of buying a house if you can't stay in it more or less indefinitely? (Yes, I know people sometimes buy houses planning to only stay in one place a few years, but I would wager most don't.)

[dlp211]

You can stay in that house as long as you pay the property taxes. If you can't pay the property taxes, that is a forcing function to get you to move. You aren't entitled to live somewhere all your life. You aren't entitled to have your taxes be subsidized by the next generation of folks so that you can keep living somewhere. It is placing the burden on the next generation of people because you happened to be there first and creates bad market incentives.