| 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. |
> 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.