[raldi]

Huh? In the scenario you describe, someone is paying below the neighborhood average in property tax, so someone makes an offer on their property, and they decline by raising their declared valuation to match the neighborhood average. Then they stay in their house and pay their fair share of property tax.

[horsawlarway]

You've never lived in a transitional neighborhood, pretty clearly.

> and they decline by raising their declared valuation to match the neighborhood average.

First - this is not in line with the previous posts. What stops me from simply declaring my value is 0 until someone makes an offer and then suddenly it's the right value. Until next year when it's 0 again because that buyer has gone away. If I only have to declare at time of potential sale, the declaration is useless.

Second - having lived in a transitional neighborhood, if your house is valued at the neighborhood average, it will be bought in 30 seconds, sight unseen, usually by a corporation that plans to rehab it (because it was last updated in the 70s) and then rent it forever.

And that second point isn't a hypothetical, it's literally already happening: https://www.cbs46.com/2022/06/03/its-an-everyday-occurrence-...

Basically - money isn't everything, and maximizing utility in a purely capitalistic sense is not a set of values shared by enough people to make this work.

If you limited this to only commercially zoned land, then maybe - but you have a social contract with all those people who bought their houses, and violating that social contract, especially in a way like this, is a recipe for disaster.

[raldi]

I've lived in transitional neighborhoods at several points in my life.

> Until next year when it's 0 again because that buyer has gone away.

Why would the buyer go away? The state itself could maintain offers on any properties lowballing their property taxes. But that wouldn't be necessary, because at any time, there would always be ample interest in purchasing real estate for discount prices. You say this yourself:

> if your house is valued at the neighborhood average, it will be bought in 30 seconds

...but again, it sounds like you misunderstand my proposal. In 30 seconds, someone would offer to buy, and then the current property owner would have the choice of either selling, or keeping their property but raising their property-tax assessment to either that amount, or the local average, whichever is lower.

[horsawlarway]

Ah - now I'm fairly convinced you haven't actually bought real estate.

There is no such thing as a "standing offer" to buy a house. They're a contract with very clear start and end dates (most offers are good for between 72 hours and two weeks).

This is because both parties have to agree at time of exchange on the value of the good, and the person making the offer usually needs to have financing lined up - They literally cannot make an offer that will be good for long periods, because the financier won't agree to that.

As for this...

> ...but again, it sounds like you misunderstand my proposal. In 30 seconds, someone would offer to buy, and then the current property owner would have the choice of either selling, or keeping their property but raising their property-tax assessment to either that amount, or the local average, whichever is lower.

Ok - follow along... now the next offer comes in 2 days later at the current value. The owner STILL has zero desire to sell. What now? Do they get to raise again?

Dude - this whole thing is ending up with more rules and regulations that the current market, which is exactly why pushing this kind of thing simply doesn't work.

In theory you're optimizing land efficiency, but you're fucking with other efficiencies ALL along the chain, and the net result is that people hate you.

----

Also - taking you at face value: "raising their property-tax assessment to either that amount, or the local average, whichever is lower."

This is fucking already how taxes work. At least in my area, every house is taxed at the local average (fulton county does average assessed value tax for land). So you're literally gaining nothing for all this additional complexity.

[raldi]

> Ah - now I'm fairly convinced you haven't actually bought real estate.

Also false. Maybe stop with the ad hominems?

> There is no such thing as a "standing offer" to buy a house.

There is in my proposal. Go back and reread it.

> This is fucking already how taxes work.

Not in California.