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Comment by foobiekr | Hacker News Reader

Well. I’ve spent some time working on retirement options since my wife and I are close. Arizona really has nothing to recommend it. Florida does, but southern Florida is kind of a wasteland with pending climate issues and northern Florida is a trashy hell hole. I have family there. If not for the cultural issues it would be a no brainer but who wants to retire somewhere awful?

Taxes-wise, I think California is underrated. At 150k a year, the tax rate is basically the same as most states, and prop 13 is incredibly beneficial from a planning perspective. You just can’t afford the parts of coasts with access to good medical care unless affordability isn’t even a question for you.

Texas near Dallas, austin, Houston have medical, culture, etc at extremely low prices. The property tax is insane and regressive but it’s a wash.

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> Arizona really has nothing to recommend it

I’ve been living in PHX for 2+ years now, and have to disagree.

Low cost of living and high QoL. Great school districts and master plan communities designed to make pre-k -> 12 schools walkable. Great food, amazing supply chains (the stuff you find at grocery stores here can be mind blowing), and well maintained infrastructure.

We are positive sum water, when you build here you are expected to bring the water for your project into the valley. We don’t ration water during the summers here the way I experienced in CA.

We supply electricity to many neighboring states (including CA) thanks to Palo Verde. Our nuclear power plant beats solar at lifetime cost per kilo-watt; the only way solar companies sell their product here is by exaggerating payback.

To me, this state is a testament to man’s perseverance and a great example of positive sum work. We’ve taken a desert and transformed it into an oasis.

Phoenix is robbing Peter to pay Paul with regards to water. Phoenix survives thanks to extreme planning measures and water diversion from the Colorado river, but that’s not going to be tenable in the next 30 yrs. There is almost no well or groundwater, and before the constant diversion of water, the city of a Phoenix consumed some order of magnitude more water than they were able to restore.

My point is, anyone who lives in an overpopulated desert and says “we don’t have a water problem” should be taken with a grain of salt.

Kind of insures that things will remain conservative because environmentalists won't move there because they are certain it's doooooooooomed!

Wait for the water to run out, and then we'll see how well PHX is liked.

Water doesn’t run out in a meaningful way. It moves and gets contaminated. Both problems are solvable.

Our approach to water is part of why we are able to give up so much from our pull on Lake Mead during this drought. Nevada is giving up 21k acre-feet, Mexico 80k af, and AZ is giving up a whopping 512k af. Nothing as far as I know for cutbacks from CA's draw.

I’ll repeat, when you build here you bring your water. And we actually enforce that. You don’t get to build a new subdivision or plant a nut tree farm without sourcing every drop of water you’re going to use.

Water is running out in some states. It’s not running out there because there isn’t water - it’s a symptom of failed water management strategies.

> The property tax is insane and regressive but it’s a wash.

How are property taxes regressive? Working class people bear the tax burden with income taxes, land owners bear the tax burden with property taxes, I'd argue that having 0 income tax and funding the state through property tax is as progressive as it gets. Of course, rental property has to pass that tax on to renters to remain profitable, but still that allows for the vast majority of property that is not rental property to bear more of the tax burden.

Property taxes are regressive because they tend to be flat rate - two properties with the same value in the same place will have the same tax assessment regardless of the income of the owners. The lower income owner pays a greater % of their income to taxes.

Relatively speaking, a steep progressive income tax regime is less regressive than a property tax since the burden is entirely on home value which is largely out of the control of homeowners.

For those who don’t live in Texas, there’s a whole cottage industry of companies that will contest the annual assessment (typically tax increase) for you, often with a guarantee that they can save more than their fee.

I wholeheartedly agree on your criticism of property appraisal as a cornerstone of property tax schemes. I wonder if there is a clean solution to this problem, I personally know people who see their tax burden increase because some county assessor says they could sell their property more now, even though they get no tangible benefit from it. It makes me reconsider the California property tax scheme where peoples taxes are assessed based on the value of them when purchased.

It works like this: Here's a guy who makes $50K a year, has $20K in assets other than his house, and his house is worth $150K, of which $30K is equity. Taxes are proportional to that $150K. Total assets / house price is 1/3.

Here's a billionaire - literally worth $1 billion. He doesn't have a $3 billion house. So the ratio of total assets to amount covered by property tax is much more favorable to the billionaire. His house may be $30 million, but total assets / house price is 33/1.

Yeah, if property taxes are the only taxes I see your point.

But when you also have sales taxes or value added taxes, chances are the billionaire is living a little more exorbitantly than the regular guy. If you want to get more progressive than that you can introduce luxury item taxes.

More importantly though, the brunt of the tax burden is still resting on the higher value properties. If we decide that progressive means "pays more of a percentage of their wealth/income" then you're right, but if we decide it means "most of the overall tax burden falls on richer people" then it is still more progressive than income tax schemes that exist now.

The original claim was that property tax is regressive. You asked how it was so. I explained. To now say "if property taxes are the only taxes I see your point" is to move the goalposts.

I recently saw folks dealing with the flip side of Prop 13, over in Texas. Vehemently against raising property taxes to pay for badly-needed schools, because retirees on fixed incomes can't afford large property tax hikes. OTOH, Prop 13 is also awful, and, surprise, surprise, we can't pay for schools in California, either, so....

Prop13 is really not awful. The extensions to the law that don’t encourage relocation are awful (such as passing properties to heirs) but having tax stability is generally beneficial in many ways. I actually expect to see prop13 laws proliferate as Californians invade places without similar laws, though perhaps tied to age.

Miami is pretty nice if you have money

I like the area, but it's pretty far from any mountains (an entire state, basically), hurricanes and a legitimate crime issue (both violent and property).

And the energy to board up all of your windows several times a year for the big hurricanes.

Hurricane proof windows are fantastic. I install them in all my homes.

Shaq money or $200k a year scruffy nerfherder money?

I make closer to the second lol. I think I am paying an outrageous amount in rent ($2500/mo but its a 1 bedroom with a pool, spa, sauna and a gym so it's pretty nice.) so many babes down here anyways so it's a pleasant living experience

What makes Florida recommendable where Arizona is not?

Max average Miami temp: 88F Max average Phoenix temp: 106F

Plenty of Arizona is not Phoenix.

They probably feel fairly equal, tbh.

Water

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