Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The key bit is that California is relatively unique here. There are a few other states that have Prop-13-like laws, but California's is the most restrictive and incumbent-homeowner-friendly. All those other states (and the ones with nothing similar) seem to get along just fine.

Of course, the solution to increased demand (driving increases in property market value) is to build more housing. Without Prop 13, a big chunk of the NIMBYs who are currently against more housing would likely change their tune if they had to choose between no new housing or much higher property taxes.

I think it would be reasonable and productive to phase out Prop 13 over time, rather than immediately getting rid of it. We could structure it so a property doesn't lose Prop 13 protection until the next time it's sold (and then it never has that protection again). We could completely remove the inheritance loophole (which was tightened up in 2020 but still exists). We could even set a date, say, 10 or 15 years in the future, when re-assessments at market value will start for everyone, regardless of whether or not they've sold. We could also phase in higher allowed assessment percentage increases over time (right now it's capped at 2% per year, but we could, say, add 0.5% to that figure every year for some number of years).

Hell, we could even leave Prop 13 in place as it is today, and just bump up the assessment increase cap to 5% or 10% or something like that. (Texas, for reference, has their own 10% yearly cap on assessment increases.)

There are so many ways to solve this, but all of them are politically unpopular. (Hell, we couldn't even reform Prop 13 as it applies to commercial properties.) As a homeowner in California, I get it, but I still support Prop 13 reform and eventual Prop 13 abolishment.

Most of the other states have not seen the rise in population growth and real estate values seen in CA. There are still places where homes are like 250k or less. There is also way more value drop off outside the metros in most other states with high cost cities such as MA or NY. You could be 30 mins drive from boston in a great 400k home. Try and find that 30 mins out from SF or LA. There just isn't really that fall off in california that you might expect from real estate markets elsewhere. It is like the rising tide has lifted all boats.

"There are still places where homes are like 250k or less."

By land mass that's the majority of the country. Population concentration is the real issue.

This is what people in about five cities in the US think.

I live in San Antonio, a metro of 2M people (city itself is one of the 10 most populous in the US). That's pretty sizable. Median home is between 260K and 310K. That is, of course, with the larger homes you'll find here vs SF/Chicago/LA/etc.

San Antonio is in the middle of the state with 360 degrees of growth and relatively flat. California’s land growth has half of that with hills and mountains near the desirable areas.

It all comes down to zoning. The demand requires capacity and the only way to add it given the geographical constraints are through infill development. Still, cities are getting dragged kicking and screaming to these conclusions, hence the opposition of SB79, as well as the entire concept of SB79 of differential upzoning vs simply widely upzoning. Even just reverting to pre 1960 zoning plans would see LA's zoned capacity rise from the present day 4.5 million (it is in the 90s% as far as population to zoned capacity) or so to something north of 10 million. If you adjust it to the ratio of that pre 1970s zoning plan, when LA had about 2.5 million people in it, the city would be zoned for 20 million with today's population.

In fact that is all that really needs to be done to ameliorate the housing crisis in California: pass a single law that repeals every single zoning adjustment from after say 1960. Or pass a law that mandates a 4:1 ratio of zoned capacity to population. The ship will right itself if it is allowed to.

To be fair 250K homes and under homes are increasingly uncommon and increasingly undesirable. Rural areas with almost zero industry are averaging out at 600-750K. Maybe a bit of a downward trend, but the average salary in the area is like 50K. so it doesn't matter.

>Rural areas with almost zero industry are averaging out at 600-750K.

Where exactly? Not true for the midwest. E.g. (1,2,3)

1. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/933-Atmore-Ct-Indianapoli...

2. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/10916-S-Wabash-Ave-Chicag...

3. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3920-15th-Ave-S-Minneapol...

Here's what you might find 20 miles outside boston, this one is 350k:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/55-Emory-St-Brockton-MA-0...

While there is certainly some (very) expensive real estate outside of Boston, to a much greater degree than San Francisco, you can actually get a house within a drive for an evening event that's pretty reasonable to a much greater degree than the Bay Area.

"Rural areas with almost zero industry are averaging out at 600-750K."

Source? This is completely inconsistent with my experience.

> Without Prop 13, a big chunk of the NIMBYs who are currently against more housing would likely change their tune if they had to choose between no new housing or much higher property taxe

I mean, the way you make housing units more affordable is to make more of them, but for existing homeowners of SFH, building condo buildings in their neighborhood will increase their property value because the competition for the remaining lots increase. Given we build close to zero family friendly multi family in this country (ie, appartments buildings have zero family oriented amnenities), there isn’t much in there for nimbys. It’s the right thing to do but you can’t except nimbys to join in on a purely monetary basis.

>appartments buildings have zero family oriented amnenities

This isn't always true. I've seen apartment buildings that have a playground and little astroturf field and some small goals. The kids also are using the pool pretty heavily in every apartment I've lived with one. Some have other facilities like basketball or tennis as well that kids could take up (or use the smooth surface for skating or something).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com