They aren’t low-to-middle class when their homes are worth millions of dollars, period.
The way they can stay in their homes is to use their equity to add revenue generating additions to their home and take on a renter.
This is how it has worked for hundreds of years until the exact same folks who passed prop 13 passed anti-density zoning legislation a few years before hand.
Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall.
> Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall.
There's no need to put “forced from their homes” in scare quotes, that is literally what happens when property taxes are allowed rise uncontrollably.
Not everything in the world is a financial transaction. It is wrong to look at homes as a share of investment to be sold to the highest bidder. The people who bought homes very cheap who are now worth a lot are necessarily very old (because it takes a long time). These people may have been poor when they bought it because it was a cheap house in an undesirable area back then. They may have had low-income jobs all their lives so they are still poor in terms of income.
It is not by any stretch a windfall for people in their 80s/90s to be forced to sell the home of a lifetime and have to move to some faraway cheap city.
Arguments against Prop 13 are in the end about classism. The idea is that as soon as an area becomes wealthy, poor people need to be removed (through rising property taxes) and sent off to live in some cheap area, so that more rich people can take their place. This does not sound fair. Rich people already have all the benefits, so Prop 13 provides a small counterbalance by allowing lower income people to stay in their lifelong homes even as the area gentrifies.
Look, we are obviously on opposite sides of this intellectual argument, so I don't have any intention of changing your mind, I just want to articulate my thoughts, because, to me, this is genuinely about providing the best world for the greatest number. I can assure it does not come from classism, frankly the opposite.
>Not everything in the world is a financial transaction. It is wrong to look at homes as a share of investment to be sold to the highest bidder.
I can't disagree with you more. Whether we like it or not, value will effect the greater populace. I'm fine with some delay to taxable on value, because these thing really do have value, but effectively eliminating it has terrible repercussions.
>and have to move to some faraway cheap city.
This is literally only something that exists in California because of Prop 13. People in other states just move to a cheaper neighborhood or downsize. The reason is because property taxes really force a balance between value and utilized property.
>Arguments against Prop 13 are in the end about classism.
Arguments against Prop 13 are about sustainability. If cities were in amber and never grew, then it wouldn't be a problem. Currently the children of the folks that passed this law have nowhere to live in their parents' cities... the reason why is because they've built cities where nobody is forced to increase density, because there is no sensible property taxes.
>The idea is that as soon as an area becomes wealthy, poor people need to be removed (through rising property taxes) and sent off to live in some cheap area, so that more rich people can take their place.
Again, for the last time... the people "sent off" have become literal millionaires in some of the highest percentiles of net worth in the nation.
>Rich people already have all the benefits, so Prop 13 provides a small counterbalance
Prop 13 is literally designed to help rich people... not poor people.
Indeed, I'm not changing your mind and won't try. Whether the effects are good or bad are a matter of opinion and debatable.
The basic math of who pays or doesn't pay or can't pay is just numbers though, I'm confused why that can be seen as debatable. They are what they are. If a low-income person can't pay their property taxes because the cash flow does not exist for them, they're out of their house. You think that's good, I think that's cruel. But either way, it is a fact.
> Again, for the last time... the people "sent off" have become literal millionaires in some of the highest percentiles of net worth in the nation.
It does not matter. Uprooting old people from their lifelong homes and sending them off to some other cheap city is very traumatic. There is research on the mental health problems caused by having to move in old age. Let alone having to move forcibly due to taxes.
Note that it is only old people who would get hurt, since it takes many decades of growth under same ownership for the Prop 13 valuation to become significantly different from market valuation, so any people in that circumstance are going to be pretty old.
> Prop 13 is literally designed to help rich people... not poor people.
This is again factually false. If Prop 13 were to disappear overnight, rich people whould whine but they can absorb the increase and keep living in their house so they'll be fine.
It's only the poor people who would get displaced. This is basic math (if taxes > income --> displaced) so it's not debatable.
> If Prop 13 were to disappear overnight, rich people whould whine but they can absorb the increase and keep living in their house so they'll be fine.
I disagree with you on many points, but this one the most. I don’t think you realize how much wealth is hoarded in CA via property, especially property tied up in corporations.
Los Angeles Country Club, for example, sits on some of the most valuable real estate in the world. They pay a pittance every year in taxes mostly because of prop 13. It would likely be infeasible to exist without its tax breaks.
I would be fine with prop 13 if it only applied to retirees. It doesn’t. It mostly effects commercial properties and inherited properties. The reason someone would have to move to another town (which pretty much would happen anywhere else in the country) is that the only way you can be priced out of an entire region is if you completely detach value from the tax rate for decades. In an area with normal property taxes, you’d really only have to move to a different neighborhood.
Los Angeles Country Club is not a rich person living in their home though. It's not a person and the property is not a home.
Sounds like we agree that Prop 13 must not apply to corporations. That never made any sense and should not be. The idea of Prop 13 is to protect poor people from being pushed out of their lifelong home by taxes. It's insane to allow corporations to benefit from Prop 13.
> I would be fine with prop 13 if it only applied to retirees.
In the realm of actual humans (not corporations), in practice the main beneficiary is only retirees. Sure, applies to everyone, but it takes a very very long time for the tax delta to become meaningful.
I've owned my home for ~25 years and the delta between property taxes under prop 13 and if I bought the property today is less than 2K so basically nothing so I don't much care.
But give it 30 more years of growth and I suspect the delta will be substantial and by then I'll be scraping along trying to survive on a fixed social security income, so the delta will, I suspect, be absolutely key in being able to stay home instead of trying to scramble at that age to find some cheap property in some faraway place I've never been to.
The way they can stay in their homes is to use their equity to add revenue generating additions to their home and take on a renter.
This is how it has worked for hundreds of years until the exact same folks who passed prop 13 passed anti-density zoning legislation a few years before hand.
Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall.