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Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

I disagree. One, property taxes didn't go down materially in my jurisdiction despite housing prices dropping precipitously. Two, schools have already been hit hard with horrible admin teams and the rise of open-enrollment. Three, jobs don't have as much of an affect on home prices as they once did. That is, investors|flippers|NAR shysters| and the government control far more of the housing market prices than we give credit for.

I am not a boomer, but they have been in charge for a while and have really messed things up.

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It was messed up when they got to it, just like for their parents, and their grandparents before. Granted, boomers sort of went nuts with it. Housing is subsidized, and this is what subsidy looks like. It's down to folklore that subsidizing housing looks like redistribution to Progressives and looks like it makes people more conservative to conservatives.

"One, property taxes didn't go down materially in my jurisdiction despite housing prices dropping precipitously"

the housing crisis happened and cities were broke.

"Two, schools have already been hit hard with horrible admin teams and the rise of open-enrollment."

has nothing to do with the fact that schools would be hurt by falling tax revenue.

"Three, jobs don't have as much of an affect on home prices as they once did."

even if true, doesnt change the fact they are still linked. san francisco would become a whole lot affordable if the tech industry closed doors tomorrow. however, those wanting to go to san francisco for a job but couldnt afford the housing would find themselves with a less compelling need to go to san francisco.

i agree boomers messed up things quite a bit, but that has little to do with the fact that falling house prices have been proven to be bad for nearly everyone.

With the housing collapse a bunch of rich people lost a ton of money. Homeowners got bailed out through bankruptcy and the banks through bullshit. The drop in housing prices wouldn't have been bad if it didn't result in banks collapsing.

If housing values dropped again we would hopefully be safe from all that this time. People are largely living in places they can afford and banks don't have half the US GDP tied up in risky housing bonds and bad loans

  the housing crisis happened and cities were broke.

There's a finance paper from the Federal Reserve which describes exactly this issue [1].

  We identify five main channels through which the housing market affects state
  and local tax revenues:  property tax revenues, transfer tax revenues, sales
  tax revenues, and personal income tax revenues.
  
  We find that property tax revenues do not tend to decrease following house
  price declines.
  
  We conclude that the recent contraction in state and local tax revenues has
  been driven primarily by the general economic recession, rather than the
  housing market per-se.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2010/201049/201049p... (PDF)

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