California housing prices....

[vi edit]

You're comparing the things you can do living in the middle of new york city to living in a college town? There is absolutely no comparison. World class art, events, public transportation, etc etc.

No I'm saying that there are many small cities across the US that are not culturally devoid cesspools of ignorance and running wild with rednecks like they are so often described to be.

 

[cirrrocco]

For teh lulz.. median house prices in my area are $1.4M.

Asians make up >40% of the city. :whiste:

Cupertino??

 

[Aharami]

Why should I be penalized because my property value increased? Did school fees suddenly increase by 100% in that same time frame? I don't have any more money in my pocket because my house is now "worth more." It is only worth more if I sell it.

I don't know. That doesn't seem very fair. But having the guy who bought it be extra penalized instead doesn't seem fair either.

yea it's not fair either way.

 

[shopbruin]

Cupertino??

That was my first guess also.

 

[Brovane]

I live in Orange County CA. Sometimes it does feel crowded. However at the end of the day I love that I can get up on a Sunday morning and I can drive 20-mins down the freeway and go to Disneyland for a couple of hours. The weather is great. Within 5-mins of my house is the Irvine Spectrum. It is great. I have my house with my 30-year fixed mortgage that I can afford. I would like a bigger yard but I deal with what I have for now. One of the guys I work with used to live in Texas. He actually hated it and couldn't wait to get back to CA. He is also originally from Britain so the red-neck in Texas might have been a little much for him.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I live in Orange County CA. Sometimes it does feel crowded. However at the end of the day I love that I can get up on a Sunday morning and I can drive 20-mins down the freeway and go to Disneyland for a couple of hours. The weather is great. Within 5-mins of my house is the Irvine Spectrum. It is great. I have my house with my 30-year fixed mortgage that I can afford. I would like a bigger yard but I deal with what I have for now. One of the guys I work with used to live in Texas. He actually hated it and couldn't wait to get back to CA. He is also originally from Britain so the red-neck in Texas might have been a little much for him.

My wife and I are friends with a couple who moved to Texas, 2 years later they moved back here and bought a little fixer upper. Both of them hated Texas.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally Posted by JulesMaximus
Why should I be penalized because my property value increased? Did school fees suddenly increase by 100% in that same time frame? I don't have any more money in my pocket because my house is now "worth more." It is only worth more if I sell it.

I don't know. That doesn't seem very fair. But having the guy who bought it be extra penalized instead doesn't seem fair either.

How is it NOT fair? If I buy a new television for $1500 on sale, and someone else buys the same television someplace else and pays $3000, should he pay the same sales tax as I did on $2000?
It's the same basic thing. You pay taxes on the price paid for the house...not on the price paid by someone else.

My house had a "market value" of about $400K in 2006...and about $140K now. Those folks who bought their houses during the peak of the bubble are taxed at the same rate as me, just on a higher amount...but MANY of them have had their properties re-valued by the county and are now paying about the same taxes that I am.

Prop 13 is the deadly "third rail" for California politicians. No one wants to touch it...although changing it for business properties has been discussed. There are loopholes in the law that allows businesses to avoid the higher taxes. Unfortunately, that's also a death trap for politicians...so it won't change anytime soon.

 

[alkemyst]

It's the same basic thing. You pay taxes on the price paid for the house...not on the price paid by someone else.

Property should be taxes based on value not what one pays for it.

 

[PingSpike]

How is it NOT fair? If I buy a new television for $1500 on sale, and someone else buys the same television someplace else and pays $3000, should he pay the same sales tax as I did on $2000?
It's the same basic thing. You pay taxes on the price paid for the house...not on the price paid by someone else.

It really isn't the same basic thing. You pay sales tax once when you buy it. Property tax you pay every year as long as you own the property. One is a one time purchase the other is part of your budget forever. And as Jules pointed out, it isn't only based on what you paid for it. You can get it reassessed during a housing bust and effectively roll back your starting point. I think we all know how compounding interest works so there's no need to get into that.

At any rate, the real problem is it decouples the cost of spending from the people asking for it. Your property tax is going to be whatever + 1.5% every year no matter what (baring your occasional reassessment decreases). It literally does not matter to you how much money the municipality is spending because you're locked in and it'll just get dumped on the next guy instead. There is no incentive for property owners to vote against spending or even demand efficiency from their government services. Even if your town wanted to build its own space shuttle launch pad it is somebody else's problem to pay for it.

Again, the only reason you might vote against this is you're afraid the whole thing will collapse or you actually wanted your kids to be able to afford a home in the area. Almost no one looks that far ahead, for good and bad reasons.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Yup, that's why people are flocking to Texas. Texas has had the highest % of people moving from other states than any other state for a few years now. Houston was the #1 city for growth in the nation, with the DFW area #2.

Where are you getting this? I know that Las Vegas Metropolitan had the highest growth rate for a good portion of the mid 200x's, but maybe it's changed recently.

EDIT: nvm, found some articles that pretty much agree with you.

Wait, those aren't relative to existing population. I doubt that Houston or DFW win taking that into account.

 

[Josh]

No I'm saying that there are many small cities across the US that are not culturally devoid cesspools of ignorance and running wild with rednecks like they are so often described to be.

Maybe so, but I was referencing a post where someone was talking about owning miles and miles of land, a 20 bedroom house, etc. That cannot be done in ANY "city" in the US (unless you have tons of money and get a massive place in NYC but you still won't have a crazy amount of land)...so my post was strictly talking about places in the middle of nowhere...think like some tiny little town in Texas