[bityard]

As a real estate investor, I can assure you that taxes on an investment property are already much higher than a homestead property. This is the main reason that outside of HCOL areas, monthly rent tends to cost more than mortgage + taxes on the same house.

I would love to build houses but unfortunately, it costs about twice as much to build a new house or apartment building than it does to buy an old one and bring it up to date. That's not even including the zoning/permitting headaches of various municipalities.

(And to be clear, I'm not advocating for the abolishment of zoning/permitting, just that some municipalities make the process unreasonably hard/expensive just because they can.)