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Comment by fizx | Hacker News Reader

If I'm an old person on fixed income, and my equity doubles from $1M to $2M, causing my property tax to double, I can take out a home equity loan against my house and be not only just fine on payments, but far ahead of where I was otherwise.

This argument was also a lie.

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> If I'm an old person on fixed income, and my equity doubles from $1M to $2M, causing my property tax to double, I can take out a home equity loan against my house and be not only just fine on payments

What is equity anyway ? If Bill Gates buys the house next door for 10M over asking now I need to “do something about it” ?

It does not make sense to me

Now if I “realize” the equity by taking out a loan I’m fine with the reassessment. But to be hit with an increase because people chose to do 0% downpayment loans is nuts

you take the home equity loan against, presumably, a paid off house. That loan has to be paid back. You now have a payment where none was before. If you were still paying on the property, your new payment is now larger than it was before. Seniors on a fixed income cannot absorb that.

The loan is paid back by your heirs selling the house after you die.

That loan has to be serviced and a loan company will want to take on that risk. So you are saying that old people should be forced into a reverse mortgage solution? How is that helping anything other than the mortgage industry?

Pay your taxes or move.

The California Tax Postponement Program exists if you are distrustful of the banks. It predates Prop 13.

Which you are excluded from if you make over $52k per year. Only choice left after that is blinding oneself.

Buy. Borrow. Die.

Or the government just collects when you sell, easy.

This is definitely the better solution in my view - I'm pretty against policies that force people to take on otherwise unnecessary debt.

> This argument was also a lie.

Huh? Your argument doesn’t debunk it. Your scheme doesn’t solve the problem, it just delays it. A person who utilizes your scheme has only secured their position temporarily by taking out a loan that they can’t possibly repay. When the cash is gone, they’re still going to have to move, and now they’ve been saddled with debt.

> Your scheme doesn’t solve the problem, it just delays it

Until we have a way to make homeowners immortal I think a temporary fix is just fine.

Sure, and it's ok for Tom Selleck to con seniors into reverse mortgages, too, because "now."

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. But there is a targeted program for low income seniors, the California Tax Postponement Program. It's been on the books since 1977. Many states have similar laws, eg. the NJ senior freeze.

Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

Even without HELOC the state of California has specific programs

https://www.prop13.wtf/2023/05/08/california-tax-postponemen...

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