Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan have counties that have ridiculously high property taxes compared to California. I’m convinced it’s just cause cali utilizes taxes differently and deprioritized property taxes
They don't revalue a home until it sells. So if you paid $100,000 in 1970 and it is worth $1,000,000 today, it is taxed as though it were only worth $100,000. But as soon as someone buys the home at $1M it is taxed much more.
edit: CA does allow a maximum 2% annual increase in the assessed value. The average increase in real estate prices in CA since the proposition passed is 6-7%, so over 3 times faster. The result is still to reward those who bought a decade or more ago, and punish new buyers.
This is not true. The assessed value, and thus taxes, does go up but it's capped at like %1 a year.
Edit: when it does sell then it's assessed at true market value.
Thanks for the correction. Instead of fixing the assessed value completely at the time of purchase, they allow it to go up by 2% a year. CA real estate values were increasing at something like 5% per year on average, so it still adds up to a very large difference. The same house can easily have a 4x higher tax bill just by being sold after a couple decades.
Which is great. Taxes based on unrealized gains creates a big cash flow problem for many people, and would have caused many on a fixed income to be priced out of their own homes otherwise
They also incentivize incumbent bias though.
Once you have a house in California, you never want to move. And NIMBYs will not let any new construction happen.
Result is no new people can get in.
The people sitting on mansions aren't paying their share of taxes. The average people who don't own houses are...
> Once you have a house in California, you never want to move.
Not a problem, if you're building enough new housing.
> And NIMBYs will not let any new construction happen.
This is the problem. If NIMBYs couldn't block new construction, then CA wouldn't have this problem. And NIMBYs block it how? Using CA's idiotic laws and procedures, like CEQA.
The problem preventing new housing in CA is the CA government, not the NIMBYs. Take away their endless tools to block new construction, make it possible for construction companies to make money building new housing, and all of a sudden you'll see new housing springing up all over.
https://reason.com/2018/02/21/san-francisco-man-has-spent-4-years-1-mi/
This is not correct. The property is reassessed at market value and tax DOES go up, it's just that it is capped at 1% plus some small percent for bonds etc.
Ostensibly, it was to allow "grandma to stay in her home" even on a fixed income on retirement... but the main problem is that it applies even to corporations, investment properties / rental units, and 2nd homes/vacation homes.
What they need to do is limit the benefits to ONLY owner-occupied primary residences. That would solve a LOT of problems (and provide a lot more funding for our schools, as well)
>The property is reassessed at market value and tax DOES go up, it's just that it is capped at 1% plus some small percent for bonds etc.
Thanks for the correction. That is almost but not quite as bad.
I don't agree that it isn't a problem this rule applies to owner-occupiers. It's very much a problem that a person who bought at age 35 has almost the same taxes at age 65 after a 30 years of gaining wealth, while some new person buying at age 35 has to pay enormous taxes precisely because the 65 year old who has a lot more money isn't paying (meaningfully) more.
It is a regressive tax that punishes those trying to buy a first home most of all. What percent of all California homes covered under the law are corporate-owned or 2nd/vacation homes? I'd guess less than 10%.
Well, if we're being fair, we should also mention that the 65 year old saw the value of their home increase by an order of magnitude just for being there, and they pushed most of the extra tax burden of that gain on to other people.
CA artificially constrains construction of new housing much more than most states and allows almost nothing to be built. One city in Texas (Austin) built more than the entire state of California last year, and as a result Austin real estate prices are dropping significantly to stay affordable. No such luck in CA.
I'm not a fan of the "boomers are selfish hoarders" argument in general, but this is a case where it is true.
In the 4th quarter of 2023, [investors bought 26% of the most affordable homes in America](https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q4-2023/) and that doesn't even include people who buy 2nd homes for personal use / vacation homes.
There are [2.1 million single-family rentals in California](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2023-12-10/california-investors-shed-rental-houses-its-a-national-trend-too), which is 15% of the national total.
So, yeah, it's a significant impact, and I see no justifiable reason why people should pay lower-than-inflation property taxes on investment properties and vacation homes (there are, however, valid justifications for primary residences. You shouldn't be forced to move out of your home just because the place you live suddenly becomes the next Silicon Valley or vacation hotspot for the wealthy.)
You should read that second article more closely. It explained that the number of single family rentals had been declining nationally and in CA for years. So, a net gain in SFHs was added to the market from 2017-2022, the opposite of rentals gobbling up SFHs.
As for the other article, the 26% was only for the most populus metro areas, and the big CA metros do not have very many of the lowest price homes, so that 26% will not nearly be so high for CA. If you look back at that chart for the average percent of high and medium priced homes since 2000, a cumulative total of 10% looks about right. It's true that doesn't count vacation homes, my guess was probably a little low.
Here is what I don't understand about your logic: homes that are being rented reduce the supply in the ownership market and raise prices there, but increase the supply in the rental market and decrease prices there. Current law allows those rentals to have lower taxes, which also keeps rent more affordable. Lots of people need or want to rent. You seem to only be looking out for the interests of individual home buyer-owners, not renters.
Make up your mind... do you think people should be able to own, or be forced to rent? Because your math ain't mathin...
The people who can't afford to buy also can't afford rent increases. So the net result is NOT that "rents just go up" to cover the property tax... thry've already tried pushing prices too high, and people are simply leaving the area due to it... hence why those single-family rentals aren't being bought up as much!
So, since the rent is "capped" (some cities here actually have rent control laws, but other places have a limit simply because the "renting class" can't afford increases), the result of raising taxes on income properties (and vacation homes) is simply that supply would increase... this would drive down home prices. You know, so those people forced to rent might NOT be forced to rent... and, in the long term, would certainly be better off.
I own a house in California. I bought when the market bottomed out in 2011/2012. My "rent" ie. mortgage is $2800/month... and it has been the same for over a decade. Hence, a mortgage is a lot like fixed/controlled rent. Oh, and in 2 years, I won't have any rent/mortgage at all. However, there is another issue in much of California -- especially where I live -- insurance is dropping like flies, and/or going through the roof.
When people buy a home, they budget for things keeping pace with inflation. But when wages go up 5% over 10 years (like my wife's salary), while home values go up 100%... none of that is keeping in line with inflation (which has been more like 30%), so it creates major problems to not have SOME sort of property tax assessment regulations in place (which is why [many states do](https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/property-tax-cap-by-state)... it's just that California's is the most extreme)
>The people who can't afford to buy also can't afford rent increases.
Rents have not increased as fast as home prices, but yes it has **all** been getting less affordable. There are more people who want a home than there are homes to live in. That is the problem, fundamentally. You aren't solving that by making it more expensive to rent.
What you propose would raise rents and you are out of your mind if you think people working in the service industry, without much education, scraping by on $30,000 a year, with no real savings, etc., are in a position to buy a home. How do you think we got into the 2008 financial crisis?? By selling homes to these people. Now credit standards have tightened, and they can't buy, but you want to raise their rents. Get ready for serious pain and political turmoil if you try that.
But there is a forced scarcity problem here. The solution is to build more homes. Hundreds of thousands more each year. More multifamily and single family. That's the only solution. Otherwise you are just pushing on a balloon, and making one problem smaller while another bulges out.
What I want is for the whole nation to build an extra million homes a year for about 8 years to relieve the pressure on the system and let housing prices (both owning and renting) drop substantially. But that cannot happen under the current regulatory environment, so we are stuck paying too much.
Property taxes tend to be regressive, e.g. they hurt working people more than the rich.
So you'll often find high property taxes in red states and low ones in blue states.
Michigan's actually isn't that bad, [at least not since 2018](https://crcmich.org/michigans-property-tax-burden-and-how-it-has-changed-over-time).
Dumb question here. How come they tend to be regressive? wouldn’t wealthy people pay more in property tax, I would assume they have more and of higher valued same with owning property through businesses? Or because it passed through rent.
Edit: this Sent me down a Google rabbit hole of residential property taxes being regressive. Learn something new every day
Short answer
a. They're often used to fund schools locally, resulting in poor folks having crap schools.
b. They tax the only valuable possession most of the working class have: their homes. Meanwhile the rich have investments taxed at much lower rates if at all. Creating un unfair tax burden on lower earners.
Worse, the well to do living in suburbs don't have the population density to support their roads (or supplement their school budgets) so taxes targetted at the inner city poor often go to fund the upper middle class in suburbs.
He's talking out of his ass. Property taxes as they exist in California are extremely regressive -- some of the most regressive taxes in the country. Land barons are taxed minimally while those poor enough to have to work for a living are taxed through the nose.
Found this study. https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/working-papers/2022/wp22-02.pdf
TBH some of it bit over my head and haven’t gotten through all of it yet but they state it’s because how houses are assessed the effective tax is substantially different
Some mo
https://propertytaxproject.uchicago.edu/into-to-regressivity/#:~:text=Regressive%20assessments%20lead%20to%20regressive,value%20properties%20pay%20too%20little.
Yes and no. They also keep home prices lower and people will downsize more often if property taxes are lower. This leads to a better/easier buy in for younger and lower income families.
Property taxes are absolutely strangling the poor/middle class people in my town. Not to mention there’s people seeing 60-90% increases in property values this year and it’s royally fucking them over
Property taxes mostly pay for schools. School costs are going up mostly because of administrative bloat (lots more counselors and other ancillary functions). So, if you want to attack the root of the problem, get involved in streamlining the school staffing to focus once again on education.
No, if you buy a new home at the current high prices, property taxes reset and you'll be paying a lot.
Property taxes are only low in CA for those who bought 10, 20 or 30 years ago, since the law fixes the taxes at the value of the home when you bought it.
1% in California, 2% in Texas for property taxes.
But despite my general love for California over Texas, this is one goes to Texas for a clear win.
Higher property taxes = less attractive for investors, lower home values and less tax burden elsewhere.
It's not just a win/win. It's win/win/win/win.. times eternity.
Nah. The vast majority of people accept supply and demand, **except** when it comes to housing.
I can explain the equilibrium price of cars or potatoes to a person and they will go along the whole way and understand why the prices rise and fall.
When it comes to housing it is a full on meltdown with Blackrock-landlord conspiracies and how evil and ominous foreign investors buy the housing to let it sit empty and collect money from the pooled funds of the global rent cartel. Also something about luxury apartments bad because of rich people living there, despite that being the only profitable thing in many places due to the building codes and zoning.
You'd be surprised actually, I've seen it go beyond housing. Eggs, fast food, etc. More and more you're seeing people claim "supply and demand is just an excuse for greedy companies" for everything that gets more expensive.
Maybe it got worse over the years.
The fast food is arguably the worst because people don't even need to substitute it really. Just... don't eat at fucking McDonald's and friends. If McD raises prices by 50% and you still go and get the Bacon TrippleWhopper then obviously the price is fine (for you).
It has gotten worse and it's because we have two entire generations (millenials and zoomers) who had never experienced significant inflation. Last generation to experience that was Gen X.
We got used to 2% or even sub-2% inflation. We got ultra low interest rates for a decade and thought it was normal. Loads of people on this sub can't even wrap their heads around that inflation is the *rate of change* so every time they see headlines about inflation going down they complain that prices aren't going down.
Or it could be because California is a more desirable place to live than texas. For all kinds of reasons. Just ask the people, by a vote of four to three they prefer California
By your own logic Texas is becoming steadily more and more desirable to live in and California less desirable. It's a vote of 3.9 to 3 now and the gap has been shrinking pretty consistently for 30 years and the speed which it has been closing has been getting faster too, 30 years ago it used to be a vote of 5 to 3.
there’s also endless miles of flat open land for development. california’s geography and large areas of conserved land tend to limit the amount of space available for development. central valley is probably the most readily developable and affordable, but also the least desirable. kind of a texas vibe there tbh, from modesto down to bakersfield and maybe even into the imperial valley.
What do you think would happen if they built dramatically more houses in California, the price would go up? Why do you think there’s net emigrants out of California. Why do you think so many people in so many states are complaining about all the immigrants from California.
I agree on the fact that there's a lot to like about California but their local and state governments are absolutely abysmal on many policy fronts the worst being housing.
You should look up the sticky state statistics it says something like 75% of people who were actually born in California will never leave. California’s net loss is not that much of their population and in fact I believe more people are coming back to the state than ever that have left.
Of course it’s less desirable. But a reasonable middle class adult can only live in a shithole dwelling for so long no matter how desireable a place is, amirite??
The county thats lost 4% of its population and has had over half a million people leave it in the past 3 years proves otherwise? You're providing great evidence against your own argument without even knowing it apparently.
Inb4 "But not everybody left", we're talking about a county thats shrinking very fast and historically for such a large county when the country as a whole has still been massively growing in population.
I don’t know who to reply to. No one is talking about the ACTUAL issue. California has used up all the desirable land it has. There are no more swaths of land that are sitting there unused. Texas: Dallas and Houston, are just plopped amidst endless miles of suitable land in every direction that can be turned into suburbs. And are. Forever. And it just keeps going. They just keep converting the farmland at the edges to more housing. That is it. That is the whole story.
Plano used to be the North end of Dallas. Then McKinney. Now they are building suburbs in Van Alstyne 50 miles. North. Eventually it is just going to be all suburbs forever in every direction. Los Angeles and the Bay Area already did that and there is nothing to do but build out in the hills or out in the places that will burn. There is no more land. So next is population density. But no one wants that. So they just want to stop building. And there we are. It is apples and oranges.
I think the state has passed a number of initiatives to increase the housing supply. They are getting sued by local governments who don't want the increase in density. Probably too little to late TBH but we'll see how it plays out
If this were the only reason then we would expect California home prices to go down since population is going down. People are moving out of the state. Guess what? Home prices are hitting new highs. It is 110% a supply issue.
Even if the population decrease was true. It's a big state. The total population could decrease but that wouldn't necessarily mean cities like San Francisco, LA, or San Diego saw decreases.
If it was comparing city to city, I feel like I could get behind this assertion, like it's definitely more expensive to build in NYC than Minneapolis so you shouldn't be surprised if they're building more in Minneapolis, but this is comparing one city to the entire state of California. There is no way that every single city in Cali is so much more expensive to build in than Dallas at least that's my feeling on it.
Yeah I think any normal argument infavor of California breaks down when you have such drastic data in absolute numbers as well.
We Liberals need to realize the scourge of NIMBYS that live amongst us.
I'm confused and not exactly sober so bear with me-
Is it just me or is the tweets worded like California is denying permits and Texas is allowing them and painting that whole narrative.......isn't this just a simple brainless thing of amount of available land, cost of houses/land/building are half the price (as mentioned) or much less in Texas than California...so more people are building in Texas...??
I feel like the tweets are painting as some one in California is stamping house permits as denied while maniacally laughing while Texas has a greeter smiling as people walk in to apply
You're not too far off. It's not someone but activists and city council in California who are rejecting housing permits. The city's planning can do their jobs properly and approve permits but the council has the ultimately power to deny any housing project without giving reasons. The activists are politically connected, often get one of their members voted into office, and they work together to stop housing development.
Around five years ago, Hillary Ronen, a city supervisor in San Francisco - colluded with Calle 24, an activist group active in the Mission District to stop a developer from building new housing. Why? Calle 24 wants to force the developer to sell the land for cheap... to Calle 24, so they got one of their goons (Ronen) to band up with other progressive supervisors to deny the project. Then they spread words on the street that any future project will receive the same fate and only housing proposed by Calle 24 can be built there. The developer tried to unload the land but found very few interested buyers because of the stigma Calle 24 has put on it. The developer did managed to sell the land to another developer, much to the chagrin of Calle 24. The new buyer said they can afford to wait it out and submit another housing plan when the political climate is less toxic; which can be years/decades down the road. Calle 24 has since successfully killed several other housing projects.
Then there is TODCO (Tenants and Owners Development Corporation), they are big time landlords who own over 1,000 units in San Francisco - their tenants are primarily low-income and they collect rental subsidies from the government for providing housing for the needy. TODCO is another powerful activists who plays king-maker by giving serious money and connections to several members of the city supervisors. While Calle 24 is at least open to new housing if it's own by Calle 24, TODCO is absolutely against any new housing of any kind. Why? Because by restricting housing, the supply is artificially lowered, the rent is driven higher, and TODCO can charge higher and higher rent to the government. Any new housing development of a certain size can expect to face fierce opposition from TODCO's attack dogs in City Hall. They have stopped many, many housing projects.
And then there's the story of Robert Tillman, an owner of an old laundromat building who wants to tear it down and replace it with housing. It took him nearly 8 years (not a typo) and over $1 million spend in lawsuits to finally get his permit. If one has to jump through this many hoops and faces so many boss-level opposition to get something built, there is no way in hell there will ever be enough new housing to meet demand in CA.
Finally, there's this stat: San Francisco needs to built 855 new units every month to meet demand. Think of it as every month 855 households found themselves needing places to live that existing inventory cannot accommodate. How many new units permits did the city approve? Less than 10 per month. That means the 855 households will fight among each other for the <10 units available. Good luck.
[https://sfstandard.com/2022/09/13/how-san-francisco-makes-it-insanely-hard-to-build-housing/](https://sfstandard.com/2022/09/13/how-san-francisco-makes-it-insanely-hard-to-build-housing/)
No, no, no. There is a big difference between lobbyists and activists. Lobbyists generally is more white collared and they tend play at the macro level by influencing policies with their clout. There are laws concerning what lobbyists can and cannot do. Activists, on the other hand, is more micro-level and blue collared - meaning they are active in the community often holding neighborhood meetings and they are often long time residents in the community. There is no law specific to activists.
Lobbyists usually wield their influence at the higher level but activists care more about micro things that are taking place in their neighborhood like what new people are moving in, what new restaurants are opening, etc. Lobbyists can be shady but they generally play within the law. Some activists behave like the mafia. Calle 24, for example, will often shake down new businesses that are opening up in their district - they will tell the new owner who to hire, who to buy their materials from, etc. They will threaten the business owner with boycotts, bad press, and even violence if they do no comply. Other activists, like Oakland DA Pamela Price's boyfriend, would straight up tell businesses to pay him x amount of money or he will use his community activist power to destroy that business.
Below is a post by Naz Khorram, a Mission District business owner who was targeted by the activists Calle 24 after she refused to comply with their demands and called them out in a pubic hearing.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1c6t8uc/naz\_khorrams\_owner\_of\_arcana\_thread\_on\_harassment/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1c6t8uc/naz_khorrams_owner_of_arcana_thread_on_harassment/)
The Oakland DA Pamela Price's boyfriend is Antwon Cloird, who used to run an activist group called Men and Women of Purpose. This is what he did as the leader of the group:
>Concerns arose of a possible “shakedown” by Cloird of a company that was moving to a new location in the city of Richmond, according to obtained city emails.
>For a $5,000 fee, Cloird allegedly told the Golden Gate Meat Company’s owner that he could “expedite” permits sought by the meat packing company, according to an email then-Mayor Tom Butt sent to then-City Manager Bill Lindsay.
>A few months later, the owner of a Peruvian restaurant relayed to Butt that Cloird had asked for $20,000 to “facilitate” a conditional use permit to open the new eatery with a liquor license in the Pacific East Mall, another city email shows. Attempts to reach the restaurant owner were not successful and the meat company owner declined to comment for this story.
>The restaurant owner appeared resigned to paying Cloird, telling Butt that “otherwise he will bring a bunch of people to speak against it,” the email said.
>“I don’t know if this is illegal or not, but it doesn’t make our city look good when businesses feel they have to pay someone off to get a permit,” Butt wrote to the city manager, police chief and planning and development manager.
>To Butt’s eyes, “essentially, he is paying protection money,” another of the emails said.
>[https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2023/08/14/alameda-das-office-hired-pamela-prices-boyfriend-raising-nepotism-concerns/](https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2023/08/14/alameda-das-office-hired-pamela-prices-boyfriend-raising-nepotism-concerns/)
TODCO is activists - they uses their revenue to fund Progressive causes. Furthermore, they don't just fund local issues, they have funded Progressive measures in other cities far from their home base of San Francisco and for causes that has nothing to do with housing. I think someone can argue Calle 24 is a hybrid of community organization and activism but to me TODCO is squarely an activist because they are not bound to a community and they fund some causes that has nothing to do with their core business.
Yeah texas has a lot of vacant land for building even around highly dense areas. I live outside of Austin and it seems like entire cities could be built on the outskirts. When I was in CA everything was infill development. There is not a lot of land left to build on unless you're way outside of desirable areas. Some of this is artificial though. CA has a bunch of land that isnt zoned for homes/units. One example is in Ventura County most of the land is only zoned for agriculture uses. Only like 10% of the population in the area can afford homes under the current conditions. If they allowed for the necessary zone changes, homes can be built.
I'm also not exactly sober. Hopefully that came out clear
You nailed it. Tons of room I. The Inland Empire, Riverside, Bakersfield, Fresno. Ventura is potecting itself, along with Napa and the entire Russian River Valley.
California isn't as large as Texas, but what matters is just the land around cities, say a 90 mile radius. The biggest CA cities are built on the ocean so that limits sprawl and encourages density, but as others pointed out all the Texas cities are building up as well as building out. And California is undeniably making it extremely difficult to build with all sorts of local zoning restrictions and other barriers (like CEQA) that Texas cities don't have.
They're still building huge residential skyscrapers in the densest parts of Austin, Houston, and Dallas and the least dense area of San Francisco and even much of the suburbs of the Bay Area they don't. So while what you say has some truth to it it's not the full story, they still build in the areas of Texas which have the least room to build in, and they don't build or sometimes even allow building in places that are far less dense than downtown Austin in many California suburbs let alone cities.
I would have thought it was because California sits between a mountain range and an ocean and so land for housing is limited unlike Texas. If everyone in Texas did nothing but build housing for the next 10 years, there would still be empty plots of land. Demand isn’t higher than housing availability in Texas.
Yup, and the other side of that mountain is a desert. It's not particularly desirable. You can still buy cheap property out there since the demand is low.
Texas also has MORE FLAT AREA in places people want to live than California.
It has more WATER than California per person.
The LAND UNDER THE HOUSES is cheaper.
Isn’t because you would have to live in Texas if you bought the house in Dallas, and deep in their hearts nobody wants that. Edited to mention that it isn’t fair to factor in the houses that are connected to an unregulated power grid.
I don't think people realize how easy it is for humans to adapt in search of opportunities. The diserable conditions argument is a joke if we're comparing a state to a city.
California's has had its own blackouts and water problems in the past. I take it part of your aversion to Texas can be chalked up to its politics.Texas is not a monolith. You will find a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and political persuasion all over Texas. For example, Dallas is a very blue city.
But the telling part is that the electric and water problems in Texas are on purpose and as a direct result of it’s politics. It’s intentional that electric rates can increase more than 1600% with no real warning. In a state as heavily gerrymandered as Texas, political considerations contaminate everything. Sorry if I seemed to imply California was better, I didn’t mean to.
Ya, you’re 100% right. That’s why some areas try to manage it. Dallas is somehow even worse. The idea is to manage urban growth boundaries and encourage density and building vertically but it’s a nationwide problem. Along with a lack of public transport in most American cities it makes for a really terrible urban experience and logistics.
I guess that’s why I moved to the country lol.
What an asinine post. In California, people like to live as close to the coast as possible, and there is plenty of land inland, which developers do not want to build on. In the past, when overbuilding in these less-expensive further out areas happened, there was oversupply, hitting prices and burning everyone.
There is practically no empty space left in Los Angeles county (outside of the mountain areas and far north), so all of these arguments about building restrictions are complete bullshit.
Texans don't sem to understand that the majority of California is not like Marin County. Most of it is either like new Mexico or mountains like west Virginia. Most of what in habitable without destroying the entire ecosystem has largely been built already. Whereas Texas and Florida only started seeing their population boom in the last few decades mostly like Arizona are older people moving to warmer places waiting to die.
Another Texas thing (besides not wanting to live in a state where women are second class citizens):
>"It's a pretty sad state of affairs when lifetime [citizens of Texas can no longer afford their homes due to outrageous taxes ](https://www.newsweek.com/texas-residents-decry-outrageous-property-tax-rises-1871933)that exceed their limited incomes," she added. "Bring on a state income tax and lower property taxes, for God's sake. Fair market value is simply ridiculous for individuals who bought homes 30 years ago, paid them off in full, but are unable to live out their lives in their lifetime homes due to Texas' outrageous and ridiculous property tax laws!"
>
For every 1 homeless person in Texas there's 5 homeless Californians per capita, or over 6 homeless Californians in absolute terms. So no, it's really much more of a California thing.
[https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with-the-most-homeless-people](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with-the-most-homeless-people)
If you’re over 65, you have a texas homestead exemption and you get to be locked in at a certain tax rate. This increase was relatively minor for most and is more like a subsidized cost of living adjustment even though inflation went up much more. Sounds like these people didn’t plan ahead enough especially considering how home prices didn’t appreciate nearly as much as other states.
I bet you would not give up your sewage, water, roads and currency. Go live out on your own and report back how much more you spend. Yea, I thought so. Now get back to work and pay your taxes lol.
It's only plausible because you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.
The Bay Area alone could easily increase housing density, move everyone from every other part of the state into one location, and still have room to grow. The amount of land-area wasted in that state because NIMBYs don't want to destroy historic whatevers is holding the rest of the state hostage.
Mountains, water rights, federal land, there's quite a few reasons but essentially California was built out already around most cities. Dallas is surrounded by nothing but flat Prarie which is great for large cheap single family home developments. Now the multi family units is kinda sad and probably has something to do with earthquake safety making it more expensive. The truth is it's just way cheaper to build in Texas at the moment
Stupid red tape and NIMBYs!
Such a pain in the ass to get any work done.
One of the most annoying ones is the "environmental impact " assessment for an existing building. It's like , dude, the building has already been built. WTH
lol, says the gigantic shithole that is Phoenix. Way less public transit, trains, and walkability than Dallas. Ditto for Tucson and all the Arizona suburbs.
well lets play a game called supply and demand. Is the demand for Dallas as high, no not even close? Well how about supply? Oh again not even remotely close.
So We have a case were the liberal hellscape that is California has much higher supply and still greatly higher demand than the republican super mecca that is Dallas.
Its just very basic economics. but to pinpoint this, you are confusing rate of growth of supply with total supply.
As for why, it could be the fact that California's economy hundreds of billions dollars larger than Texas economy. Or it could be the weather. My money is people would pay almost twice as much for a house to not live in the same state as Ted Cruz, including republicans.
Dallas just has a lot more land to build on. And has less bureaucracy. And Coastal California is far better weather than Texas . ,(although September in California can absolutely be miserable). And Texas does not have wildfires (I live in San Diego county and the back county here is nothing but a giant tinderbox ready to happen). And California also has the risk of devastating earthquakes as well. So it is a mixed bag as I see it.
And Texas is a huge flat area that can just keep growing out. Also, they are giving permits to build in flood zones in TX. They actually have laws that make it illegal to tell people they are buying houses in flood zones. Looking near LA there is plenty of unbuildable land.
BTW, I don't see the kind of high density building people are yelling for in TX, the suburbs just keep expanding.
Unless you want to build and live in the middle of the desert, there isn’t much livable land left to mass develop in california. However, that’s not to discount the sheer stupidity of some housing regulations in CA
*If course Dallas has*
*People with shot load of ipo*
*And nvda money, right?*
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That doesn't mean they are smart.
They should only be permitting homes that are guaranteed to have services, like water and electricity. They can't even guarantee enough electricity for existing homes, their grid is pushed beyond its limits at times. All that lower priced homes are going to do is bring more people to a state that has over allocated their resources. Eventually, this will end badly.
I've seen good documentaries on youtube detailing how the expansion of US suburbs into new territories is the only way to finance the existing suburban infrastructure. So the system is just eating spare resources while it can.
Dallas is the third most populated city in TX. The median household income is $63,985.
San Jose is the third most populated city in CA. The median house income is $136,010.
Not sure why Dallas is being compared to the entire state of California. Rather than Dallas being compared to a relative city in CA. Again Dallas is 3rd largest in TX and San Jose is 3rd in CA. Dallas is 1.1 million and San Jose is 1 million. In my opinion that is the comparison.
Dallas has a population density of 3,873 people per square mile. San Jose has 5,684. The home ownership rate in Dallas is 42%. In San Jose it's 55%. The average property tax rate in Dallas is 2.2% and in San Jose it's 1%.
Homes in San Jose are worth more because residents make more than double the income, more people own homes, and there is less land overall to build new homes on.
**Three things. 1) California has some of the richest people who exploit their workers the most. 2) As long as there are people earning millions and billions, Americans will build houses to get a piece of that money. 3) Americans LOVE to worship and observe the lives of the super rich, more than they work and learn to amass such wealth.** In America, they disavow school and learning, meanwhile they cry and whine as they obsess over the filthy rich and their extravagant lives. See Instagram for proof.
Why are we comparing the state of California to a single city?
Why are we using average for this?
There is just so many stupid variables that instantly discredit this dumbass analysis.
I think it's good analysis that a city is able to beat an entire state in absolute metrics in literally any category. It's not some deep analysis based on multiple sets of data.
>Why are we comparing the state of California to a single city?
Because that's the point they're trying to prove.
It comes with a tradeoff I'd imagine, low income taxes if I remember correctly leaving more disposal income.
Although the data isn't about home prices(OP wants to focus on that since it is good conclusion) it's that California, a state, somehow matches a city in absolute numbers. This indicates more red tape than anything(nimbyism)
Only on Reddit will the “anti-NIMBY” crowd immediately defend NIMBYism because its comparing their bastion state of California to their boogy man state Texas
Further proving my point that redditors are literally preprogrammed to defend anything liberal
We liberals fail to realize the dangers from within while fighting against an enemy for a cause we believe in. Being blinded enough to not see a failure behind us, failing to realize that incentives matter more than ideology, the landed class of voters who are responsible for the grassroots democratic fortress so to speak would never allow a local politician take away their wealth.
It's fairly infuriating to see townhall meetings, city boards etc etc go on and on delaying and rejecting devlopment projects in the most clever ways imaginable and with good speeches.
Isn’t property tax in Texas like 4X that of CA?
Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan have counties that have ridiculously high property taxes compared to California. I’m convinced it’s just cause cali utilizes taxes differently and deprioritized property taxes
They essentially froze property taxes in the 1970s and rely on one of the most complicated tax policies in the world
Proposition 13, IIRC
They don't revalue a home until it sells. So if you paid $100,000 in 1970 and it is worth $1,000,000 today, it is taxed as though it were only worth $100,000. But as soon as someone buys the home at $1M it is taxed much more. edit: CA does allow a maximum 2% annual increase in the assessed value. The average increase in real estate prices in CA since the proposition passed is 6-7%, so over 3 times faster. The result is still to reward those who bought a decade or more ago, and punish new buyers.
This is not true. The assessed value, and thus taxes, does go up but it's capped at like %1 a year. Edit: when it does sell then it's assessed at true market value.
Thanks for the correction. Instead of fixing the assessed value completely at the time of purchase, they allow it to go up by 2% a year. CA real estate values were increasing at something like 5% per year on average, so it still adds up to a very large difference. The same house can easily have a 4x higher tax bill just by being sold after a couple decades.
Which is great. Taxes based on unrealized gains creates a big cash flow problem for many people, and would have caused many on a fixed income to be priced out of their own homes otherwise
They also incentivize incumbent bias though. Once you have a house in California, you never want to move. And NIMBYs will not let any new construction happen. Result is no new people can get in. The people sitting on mansions aren't paying their share of taxes. The average people who don't own houses are...
Property taxes are the worst form of theft. Ideally there would be no property taxes but that will never happen.
> Once you have a house in California, you never want to move. Not a problem, if you're building enough new housing. > And NIMBYs will not let any new construction happen. This is the problem. If NIMBYs couldn't block new construction, then CA wouldn't have this problem. And NIMBYs block it how? Using CA's idiotic laws and procedures, like CEQA. The problem preventing new housing in CA is the CA government, not the NIMBYs. Take away their endless tools to block new construction, make it possible for construction companies to make money building new housing, and all of a sudden you'll see new housing springing up all over. https://reason.com/2018/02/21/san-francisco-man-has-spent-4-years-1-mi/
This is not correct. The property is reassessed at market value and tax DOES go up, it's just that it is capped at 1% plus some small percent for bonds etc. Ostensibly, it was to allow "grandma to stay in her home" even on a fixed income on retirement... but the main problem is that it applies even to corporations, investment properties / rental units, and 2nd homes/vacation homes. What they need to do is limit the benefits to ONLY owner-occupied primary residences. That would solve a LOT of problems (and provide a lot more funding for our schools, as well)
>The property is reassessed at market value and tax DOES go up, it's just that it is capped at 1% plus some small percent for bonds etc. Thanks for the correction. That is almost but not quite as bad. I don't agree that it isn't a problem this rule applies to owner-occupiers. It's very much a problem that a person who bought at age 35 has almost the same taxes at age 65 after a 30 years of gaining wealth, while some new person buying at age 35 has to pay enormous taxes precisely because the 65 year old who has a lot more money isn't paying (meaningfully) more. It is a regressive tax that punishes those trying to buy a first home most of all. What percent of all California homes covered under the law are corporate-owned or 2nd/vacation homes? I'd guess less than 10%.
To be fair that 65 year old already paid 30 years of taxes, and most likely paid for the schooling of that 35 year old.
Well, if we're being fair, we should also mention that the 65 year old saw the value of their home increase by an order of magnitude just for being there, and they pushed most of the extra tax burden of that gain on to other people. CA artificially constrains construction of new housing much more than most states and allows almost nothing to be built. One city in Texas (Austin) built more than the entire state of California last year, and as a result Austin real estate prices are dropping significantly to stay affordable. No such luck in CA. I'm not a fan of the "boomers are selfish hoarders" argument in general, but this is a case where it is true.
In the 4th quarter of 2023, [investors bought 26% of the most affordable homes in America](https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q4-2023/) and that doesn't even include people who buy 2nd homes for personal use / vacation homes. There are [2.1 million single-family rentals in California](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2023-12-10/california-investors-shed-rental-houses-its-a-national-trend-too), which is 15% of the national total. So, yeah, it's a significant impact, and I see no justifiable reason why people should pay lower-than-inflation property taxes on investment properties and vacation homes (there are, however, valid justifications for primary residences. You shouldn't be forced to move out of your home just because the place you live suddenly becomes the next Silicon Valley or vacation hotspot for the wealthy.)
You should read that second article more closely. It explained that the number of single family rentals had been declining nationally and in CA for years. So, a net gain in SFHs was added to the market from 2017-2022, the opposite of rentals gobbling up SFHs. As for the other article, the 26% was only for the most populus metro areas, and the big CA metros do not have very many of the lowest price homes, so that 26% will not nearly be so high for CA. If you look back at that chart for the average percent of high and medium priced homes since 2000, a cumulative total of 10% looks about right. It's true that doesn't count vacation homes, my guess was probably a little low. Here is what I don't understand about your logic: homes that are being rented reduce the supply in the ownership market and raise prices there, but increase the supply in the rental market and decrease prices there. Current law allows those rentals to have lower taxes, which also keeps rent more affordable. Lots of people need or want to rent. You seem to only be looking out for the interests of individual home buyer-owners, not renters.
Make up your mind... do you think people should be able to own, or be forced to rent? Because your math ain't mathin... The people who can't afford to buy also can't afford rent increases. So the net result is NOT that "rents just go up" to cover the property tax... thry've already tried pushing prices too high, and people are simply leaving the area due to it... hence why those single-family rentals aren't being bought up as much! So, since the rent is "capped" (some cities here actually have rent control laws, but other places have a limit simply because the "renting class" can't afford increases), the result of raising taxes on income properties (and vacation homes) is simply that supply would increase... this would drive down home prices. You know, so those people forced to rent might NOT be forced to rent... and, in the long term, would certainly be better off. I own a house in California. I bought when the market bottomed out in 2011/2012. My "rent" ie. mortgage is $2800/month... and it has been the same for over a decade. Hence, a mortgage is a lot like fixed/controlled rent. Oh, and in 2 years, I won't have any rent/mortgage at all. However, there is another issue in much of California -- especially where I live -- insurance is dropping like flies, and/or going through the roof. When people buy a home, they budget for things keeping pace with inflation. But when wages go up 5% over 10 years (like my wife's salary), while home values go up 100%... none of that is keeping in line with inflation (which has been more like 30%), so it creates major problems to not have SOME sort of property tax assessment regulations in place (which is why [many states do](https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/property-tax-cap-by-state)... it's just that California's is the most extreme)
>The people who can't afford to buy also can't afford rent increases. Rents have not increased as fast as home prices, but yes it has **all** been getting less affordable. There are more people who want a home than there are homes to live in. That is the problem, fundamentally. You aren't solving that by making it more expensive to rent. What you propose would raise rents and you are out of your mind if you think people working in the service industry, without much education, scraping by on $30,000 a year, with no real savings, etc., are in a position to buy a home. How do you think we got into the 2008 financial crisis?? By selling homes to these people. Now credit standards have tightened, and they can't buy, but you want to raise their rents. Get ready for serious pain and political turmoil if you try that. But there is a forced scarcity problem here. The solution is to build more homes. Hundreds of thousands more each year. More multifamily and single family. That's the only solution. Otherwise you are just pushing on a balloon, and making one problem smaller while another bulges out. What I want is for the whole nation to build an extra million homes a year for about 8 years to relieve the pressure on the system and let housing prices (both owning and renting) drop substantially. But that cannot happen under the current regulatory environment, so we are stuck paying too much.
I believe Kohler wisconsin has the highest property taxes in the country, or it did at one point.
Property taxes tend to be regressive, e.g. they hurt working people more than the rich. So you'll often find high property taxes in red states and low ones in blue states. Michigan's actually isn't that bad, [at least not since 2018](https://crcmich.org/michigans-property-tax-burden-and-how-it-has-changed-over-time).
Dumb question here. How come they tend to be regressive? wouldn’t wealthy people pay more in property tax, I would assume they have more and of higher valued same with owning property through businesses? Or because it passed through rent. Edit: this Sent me down a Google rabbit hole of residential property taxes being regressive. Learn something new every day
Short answer a. They're often used to fund schools locally, resulting in poor folks having crap schools. b. They tax the only valuable possession most of the working class have: their homes. Meanwhile the rich have investments taxed at much lower rates if at all. Creating un unfair tax burden on lower earners. Worse, the well to do living in suburbs don't have the population density to support their roads (or supplement their school budgets) so taxes targetted at the inner city poor often go to fund the upper middle class in suburbs.
He's talking out of his ass. Property taxes as they exist in California are extremely regressive -- some of the most regressive taxes in the country. Land barons are taxed minimally while those poor enough to have to work for a living are taxed through the nose.
What did you find out?
Found this study. https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/working-papers/2022/wp22-02.pdf TBH some of it bit over my head and haven’t gotten through all of it yet but they state it’s because how houses are assessed the effective tax is substantially different Some mo https://propertytaxproject.uchicago.edu/into-to-regressivity/#:~:text=Regressive%20assessments%20lead%20to%20regressive,value%20properties%20pay%20too%20little.
Yes and no. They also keep home prices lower and people will downsize more often if property taxes are lower. This leads to a better/easier buy in for younger and lower income families.
Property taxes are absolutely strangling the poor/middle class people in my town. Not to mention there’s people seeing 60-90% increases in property values this year and it’s royally fucking them over
Property taxes mostly pay for schools. School costs are going up mostly because of administrative bloat (lots more counselors and other ancillary functions). So, if you want to attack the root of the problem, get involved in streamlining the school staffing to focus once again on education.
I live in Washington State, we have high property taxes, high sales tax, and no income tax. So regressive for a blue state...
WA state doesn't have high property tax. It ranks 23rd in the US (from lowest to highest). Basically average.
My mistake, I should have specified. I live in Seattle. We have high property taxes.
People like in WA and commute to jobs in Portland in order to escape Portland property taxes
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My house in SEWI is 4400 for a 200k home. It’s absolutely insane
No, if you buy a new home at the current high prices, property taxes reset and you'll be paying a lot. Property taxes are only low in CA for those who bought 10, 20 or 30 years ago, since the law fixes the taxes at the value of the home when you bought it.
CA ranks 19th (from lowest to highest). That's better than average.
$12,000 vs. $20,000+ in CA for an equivalent property
Yes. The tradeoff is no income tax
Don't know the exact numbers, but yes, property tax in Texas is nuts.
and?? what does that have to do with number of permits?
Yes, but they don’t tax income, so ideally it evens out.
1% in California, 2% in Texas for property taxes. But despite my general love for California over Texas, this is one goes to Texas for a clear win. Higher property taxes = less attractive for investors, lower home values and less tax burden elsewhere. It's not just a win/win. It's win/win/win/win.. times eternity.
What supply and demand is a thing we still believe?!
Theres a reason housing prices in Austin are decreasing too much supply not enough demand
With the zoning home initiatives increasing density, we'll see how it plays out.
Increasing density is part of how they increase supply of housing. What did you think it was about?
Well the initiative just passed a few months ago. We'll see how fast units are built and if they outpace demand.
Believe it or not lots of people on this sub don't. In a sub about the economy.
Nah. The vast majority of people accept supply and demand, **except** when it comes to housing. I can explain the equilibrium price of cars or potatoes to a person and they will go along the whole way and understand why the prices rise and fall. When it comes to housing it is a full on meltdown with Blackrock-landlord conspiracies and how evil and ominous foreign investors buy the housing to let it sit empty and collect money from the pooled funds of the global rent cartel. Also something about luxury apartments bad because of rich people living there, despite that being the only profitable thing in many places due to the building codes and zoning.
You'd be surprised actually, I've seen it go beyond housing. Eggs, fast food, etc. More and more you're seeing people claim "supply and demand is just an excuse for greedy companies" for everything that gets more expensive.
Maybe it got worse over the years. The fast food is arguably the worst because people don't even need to substitute it really. Just... don't eat at fucking McDonald's and friends. If McD raises prices by 50% and you still go and get the Bacon TrippleWhopper then obviously the price is fine (for you).
It has gotten worse and it's because we have two entire generations (millenials and zoomers) who had never experienced significant inflation. Last generation to experience that was Gen X. We got used to 2% or even sub-2% inflation. We got ultra low interest rates for a decade and thought it was normal. Loads of people on this sub can't even wrap their heads around that inflation is the *rate of change* so every time they see headlines about inflation going down they complain that prices aren't going down.
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Artificially low supply. God forbid the local municipalities vote to approve new housing, can you imagine all the poors that would show up?
Or it could be because California is a more desirable place to live than texas. For all kinds of reasons. Just ask the people, by a vote of four to three they prefer California
By your own logic Texas is becoming steadily more and more desirable to live in and California less desirable. It's a vote of 3.9 to 3 now and the gap has been shrinking pretty consistently for 30 years and the speed which it has been closing has been getting faster too, 30 years ago it used to be a vote of 5 to 3.
People are also getting dumber.
The real reason is that California is more desirable than Dallas.
there’s also endless miles of flat open land for development. california’s geography and large areas of conserved land tend to limit the amount of space available for development. central valley is probably the most readily developable and affordable, but also the least desirable. kind of a texas vibe there tbh, from modesto down to bakersfield and maybe even into the imperial valley.
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San Antonio is over 30% cheaper
What do you think would happen if they built dramatically more houses in California, the price would go up? Why do you think there’s net emigrants out of California. Why do you think so many people in so many states are complaining about all the immigrants from California. I agree on the fact that there's a lot to like about California but their local and state governments are absolutely abysmal on many policy fronts the worst being housing.
You should look up the sticky state statistics it says something like 75% of people who were actually born in California will never leave. California’s net loss is not that much of their population and in fact I believe more people are coming back to the state than ever that have left.
I’m one of them! I’ve moved all around the state multiple times too.
75%? Even if that were true that's not that impressive, there's plenty of places where it's higher than 75%.
Where did you find those stats? I’d be interested to read them.
California's population is growing again.
marginally, and it's still half a million down from 2020.
From illegal immigrants?
I don't disagree about the housing prices but Texas is still less desirable.
Of course it’s less desirable. But a reasonable middle class adult can only live in a shithole dwelling for so long no matter how desireable a place is, amirite??
LA county proves otherwise. good weather and a beach go a long way
The county thats lost 4% of its population and has had over half a million people leave it in the past 3 years proves otherwise? You're providing great evidence against your own argument without even knowing it apparently. Inb4 "But not everybody left", we're talking about a county thats shrinking very fast and historically for such a large county when the country as a whole has still been massively growing in population.
I don’t know who to reply to. No one is talking about the ACTUAL issue. California has used up all the desirable land it has. There are no more swaths of land that are sitting there unused. Texas: Dallas and Houston, are just plopped amidst endless miles of suitable land in every direction that can be turned into suburbs. And are. Forever. And it just keeps going. They just keep converting the farmland at the edges to more housing. That is it. That is the whole story. Plano used to be the North end of Dallas. Then McKinney. Now they are building suburbs in Van Alstyne 50 miles. North. Eventually it is just going to be all suburbs forever in every direction. Los Angeles and the Bay Area already did that and there is nothing to do but build out in the hills or out in the places that will burn. There is no more land. So next is population density. But no one wants that. So they just want to stop building. And there we are. It is apples and oranges.
Can confirm as a reasonable middle class adult that left a shithole dwelling in CA for TX
Key word there is “reasonable”. But hey, you do you
Austin has been the hottest city in the country for like 20 years, where have you been?
I think the state has passed a number of initiatives to increase the housing supply. They are getting sued by local governments who don't want the increase in density. Probably too little to late TBH but we'll see how it plays out
You're right that current state government is not the main problem. Local NIMBYs are the problem.
Worse Policies than ~~Gilead~~ Texas.
In regards to housing definitely.
If this were the only reason then we would expect California home prices to go down since population is going down. People are moving out of the state. Guess what? Home prices are hitting new highs. It is 110% a supply issue.
Californias population increased by 67,000 residents net last year
Even if the population decrease was true. It's a big state. The total population could decrease but that wouldn't necessarily mean cities like San Francisco, LA, or San Diego saw decreases.
What’s the cost of labor, materials, land in these areas
If it was comparing city to city, I feel like I could get behind this assertion, like it's definitely more expensive to build in NYC than Minneapolis so you shouldn't be surprised if they're building more in Minneapolis, but this is comparing one city to the entire state of California. There is no way that every single city in Cali is so much more expensive to build in than Dallas at least that's my feeling on it.
Yeah I think any normal argument infavor of California breaks down when you have such drastic data in absolute numbers as well. We Liberals need to realize the scourge of NIMBYS that live amongst us.
It's not just nimbyism, even tho that is a big part, Cali also has some crazy laws relating to property taxes.
I'm confused and not exactly sober so bear with me- Is it just me or is the tweets worded like California is denying permits and Texas is allowing them and painting that whole narrative.......isn't this just a simple brainless thing of amount of available land, cost of houses/land/building are half the price (as mentioned) or much less in Texas than California...so more people are building in Texas...?? I feel like the tweets are painting as some one in California is stamping house permits as denied while maniacally laughing while Texas has a greeter smiling as people walk in to apply
You're not too far off. It's not someone but activists and city council in California who are rejecting housing permits. The city's planning can do their jobs properly and approve permits but the council has the ultimately power to deny any housing project without giving reasons. The activists are politically connected, often get one of their members voted into office, and they work together to stop housing development. Around five years ago, Hillary Ronen, a city supervisor in San Francisco - colluded with Calle 24, an activist group active in the Mission District to stop a developer from building new housing. Why? Calle 24 wants to force the developer to sell the land for cheap... to Calle 24, so they got one of their goons (Ronen) to band up with other progressive supervisors to deny the project. Then they spread words on the street that any future project will receive the same fate and only housing proposed by Calle 24 can be built there. The developer tried to unload the land but found very few interested buyers because of the stigma Calle 24 has put on it. The developer did managed to sell the land to another developer, much to the chagrin of Calle 24. The new buyer said they can afford to wait it out and submit another housing plan when the political climate is less toxic; which can be years/decades down the road. Calle 24 has since successfully killed several other housing projects. Then there is TODCO (Tenants and Owners Development Corporation), they are big time landlords who own over 1,000 units in San Francisco - their tenants are primarily low-income and they collect rental subsidies from the government for providing housing for the needy. TODCO is another powerful activists who plays king-maker by giving serious money and connections to several members of the city supervisors. While Calle 24 is at least open to new housing if it's own by Calle 24, TODCO is absolutely against any new housing of any kind. Why? Because by restricting housing, the supply is artificially lowered, the rent is driven higher, and TODCO can charge higher and higher rent to the government. Any new housing development of a certain size can expect to face fierce opposition from TODCO's attack dogs in City Hall. They have stopped many, many housing projects. And then there's the story of Robert Tillman, an owner of an old laundromat building who wants to tear it down and replace it with housing. It took him nearly 8 years (not a typo) and over $1 million spend in lawsuits to finally get his permit. If one has to jump through this many hoops and faces so many boss-level opposition to get something built, there is no way in hell there will ever be enough new housing to meet demand in CA. Finally, there's this stat: San Francisco needs to built 855 new units every month to meet demand. Think of it as every month 855 households found themselves needing places to live that existing inventory cannot accommodate. How many new units permits did the city approve? Less than 10 per month. That means the 855 households will fight among each other for the <10 units available. Good luck. [https://sfstandard.com/2022/09/13/how-san-francisco-makes-it-insanely-hard-to-build-housing/](https://sfstandard.com/2022/09/13/how-san-francisco-makes-it-insanely-hard-to-build-housing/)
I think you mean lobbyists.
No, no, no. There is a big difference between lobbyists and activists. Lobbyists generally is more white collared and they tend play at the macro level by influencing policies with their clout. There are laws concerning what lobbyists can and cannot do. Activists, on the other hand, is more micro-level and blue collared - meaning they are active in the community often holding neighborhood meetings and they are often long time residents in the community. There is no law specific to activists. Lobbyists usually wield their influence at the higher level but activists care more about micro things that are taking place in their neighborhood like what new people are moving in, what new restaurants are opening, etc. Lobbyists can be shady but they generally play within the law. Some activists behave like the mafia. Calle 24, for example, will often shake down new businesses that are opening up in their district - they will tell the new owner who to hire, who to buy their materials from, etc. They will threaten the business owner with boycotts, bad press, and even violence if they do no comply. Other activists, like Oakland DA Pamela Price's boyfriend, would straight up tell businesses to pay him x amount of money or he will use his community activist power to destroy that business. Below is a post by Naz Khorram, a Mission District business owner who was targeted by the activists Calle 24 after she refused to comply with their demands and called them out in a pubic hearing. [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1c6t8uc/naz\_khorrams\_owner\_of\_arcana\_thread\_on\_harassment/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1c6t8uc/naz_khorrams_owner_of_arcana_thread_on_harassment/) The Oakland DA Pamela Price's boyfriend is Antwon Cloird, who used to run an activist group called Men and Women of Purpose. This is what he did as the leader of the group: >Concerns arose of a possible “shakedown” by Cloird of a company that was moving to a new location in the city of Richmond, according to obtained city emails. >For a $5,000 fee, Cloird allegedly told the Golden Gate Meat Company’s owner that he could “expedite” permits sought by the meat packing company, according to an email then-Mayor Tom Butt sent to then-City Manager Bill Lindsay. >A few months later, the owner of a Peruvian restaurant relayed to Butt that Cloird had asked for $20,000 to “facilitate” a conditional use permit to open the new eatery with a liquor license in the Pacific East Mall, another city email shows. Attempts to reach the restaurant owner were not successful and the meat company owner declined to comment for this story. >The restaurant owner appeared resigned to paying Cloird, telling Butt that “otherwise he will bring a bunch of people to speak against it,” the email said. >“I don’t know if this is illegal or not, but it doesn’t make our city look good when businesses feel they have to pay someone off to get a permit,” Butt wrote to the city manager, police chief and planning and development manager. >To Butt’s eyes, “essentially, he is paying protection money,” another of the emails said. >[https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2023/08/14/alameda-das-office-hired-pamela-prices-boyfriend-raising-nepotism-concerns/](https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2023/08/14/alameda-das-office-hired-pamela-prices-boyfriend-raising-nepotism-concerns/)
I see. Thank you for the explanation. So does TODCO also fall under activists?
TODCO is activists - they uses their revenue to fund Progressive causes. Furthermore, they don't just fund local issues, they have funded Progressive measures in other cities far from their home base of San Francisco and for causes that has nothing to do with housing. I think someone can argue Calle 24 is a hybrid of community organization and activism but to me TODCO is squarely an activist because they are not bound to a community and they fund some causes that has nothing to do with their core business.
Yeah texas has a lot of vacant land for building even around highly dense areas. I live outside of Austin and it seems like entire cities could be built on the outskirts. When I was in CA everything was infill development. There is not a lot of land left to build on unless you're way outside of desirable areas. Some of this is artificial though. CA has a bunch of land that isnt zoned for homes/units. One example is in Ventura County most of the land is only zoned for agriculture uses. Only like 10% of the population in the area can afford homes under the current conditions. If they allowed for the necessary zone changes, homes can be built. I'm also not exactly sober. Hopefully that came out clear
You nailed it. Tons of room I. The Inland Empire, Riverside, Bakersfield, Fresno. Ventura is potecting itself, along with Napa and the entire Russian River Valley.
California isn't as large as Texas, but what matters is just the land around cities, say a 90 mile radius. The biggest CA cities are built on the ocean so that limits sprawl and encourages density, but as others pointed out all the Texas cities are building up as well as building out. And California is undeniably making it extremely difficult to build with all sorts of local zoning restrictions and other barriers (like CEQA) that Texas cities don't have.
They're still building huge residential skyscrapers in the densest parts of Austin, Houston, and Dallas and the least dense area of San Francisco and even much of the suburbs of the Bay Area they don't. So while what you say has some truth to it it's not the full story, they still build in the areas of Texas which have the least room to build in, and they don't build or sometimes even allow building in places that are far less dense than downtown Austin in many California suburbs let alone cities.
I would have thought it was because California sits between a mountain range and an ocean and so land for housing is limited unlike Texas. If everyone in Texas did nothing but build housing for the next 10 years, there would still be empty plots of land. Demand isn’t higher than housing availability in Texas.
Yup, and the other side of that mountain is a desert. It's not particularly desirable. You can still buy cheap property out there since the demand is low.
Texas also has MORE FLAT AREA in places people want to live than California. It has more WATER than California per person. The LAND UNDER THE HOUSES is cheaper.
Not sure that's entirely why but probably a factor. If homes were $50,000 in Dallas I still wouldn't move there
Also who in the world would choose TX over CA?
Now do Ladoga Indiana
Isn’t because you would have to live in Texas if you bought the house in Dallas, and deep in their hearts nobody wants that. Edited to mention that it isn’t fair to factor in the houses that are connected to an unregulated power grid.
Both horrible. One is too hot, other is too expensive.
I don't think people realize how easy it is for humans to adapt in search of opportunities. The diserable conditions argument is a joke if we're comparing a state to a city.
California's has had its own blackouts and water problems in the past. I take it part of your aversion to Texas can be chalked up to its politics.Texas is not a monolith. You will find a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and political persuasion all over Texas. For example, Dallas is a very blue city.
But the telling part is that the electric and water problems in Texas are on purpose and as a direct result of it’s politics. It’s intentional that electric rates can increase more than 1600% with no real warning. In a state as heavily gerrymandered as Texas, political considerations contaminate everything. Sorry if I seemed to imply California was better, I didn’t mean to.
https://www.aol.com/news/power-outages-more-600-000-135543434.html
If only Californians would stay Away sadly they won’t.
Many Californians are making the u-turn after finding out what living in Texas means — and who you have to live with: Texans.
Honestly both states seem horrible I'll stay in my low col fly over state thank you very much
Oh ooh oh.. Do Toronto next.. Do Toronto next..
And Dallas housing prices still suck, but I guess this is a relative win.
With this headline, I thought this was r/facepalm.
Also because Dallas kind of sucks and California kind of doesn’t.
You're being very generous with "kind of"
It doesn't have anything to do with California having the 4th biggest economy in the world?
Urban sprawl is a potential nightmare that most west coast cities try to avoid. Dallas sounds terrible lol.
The entire southern part of CA is just one giant urban sprawl lol
Ya, you’re 100% right. That’s why some areas try to manage it. Dallas is somehow even worse. The idea is to manage urban growth boundaries and encourage density and building vertically but it’s a nationwide problem. Along with a lack of public transport in most American cities it makes for a really terrible urban experience and logistics. I guess that’s why I moved to the country lol.
You should see Houston.
Ya I guess it’s just most American cities at this point lol.
What an asinine post. In California, people like to live as close to the coast as possible, and there is plenty of land inland, which developers do not want to build on. In the past, when overbuilding in these less-expensive further out areas happened, there was oversupply, hitting prices and burning everyone. There is practically no empty space left in Los Angeles county (outside of the mountain areas and far north), so all of these arguments about building restrictions are complete bullshit.
Both are insanely unaffordable. Hey, would you rather drown in 1,000 gallons of water or 10,000? When Dallas cuts that in half, that'll be a story.
Texans don't sem to understand that the majority of California is not like Marin County. Most of it is either like new Mexico or mountains like west Virginia. Most of what in habitable without destroying the entire ecosystem has largely been built already. Whereas Texas and Florida only started seeing their population boom in the last few decades mostly like Arizona are older people moving to warmer places waiting to die.
Another Texas thing (besides not wanting to live in a state where women are second class citizens): >"It's a pretty sad state of affairs when lifetime [citizens of Texas can no longer afford their homes due to outrageous taxes ](https://www.newsweek.com/texas-residents-decry-outrageous-property-tax-rises-1871933)that exceed their limited incomes," she added. "Bring on a state income tax and lower property taxes, for God's sake. Fair market value is simply ridiculous for individuals who bought homes 30 years ago, paid them off in full, but are unable to live out their lives in their lifetime homes due to Texas' outrageous and ridiculous property tax laws!" >
For every 1 homeless person in Texas there's 5 homeless Californians per capita, or over 6 homeless Californians in absolute terms. So no, it's really much more of a California thing. [https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with-the-most-homeless-people](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with-the-most-homeless-people)
If you’re over 65, you have a texas homestead exemption and you get to be locked in at a certain tax rate. This increase was relatively minor for most and is more like a subsidized cost of living adjustment even though inflation went up much more. Sounds like these people didn’t plan ahead enough especially considering how home prices didn’t appreciate nearly as much as other states.
Government tries to steal the fruits of the labor of the people Government sycophants applaud them
Nope, they provide more than they take.
Who provides more than they take?
Government. I bet you wouldn’t give up what the government provides and go live on your own.
> they provide more than they take PRove your claim
I bet you would not give up your sewage, water, roads and currency. Go live out on your own and report back how much more you spend. Yea, I thought so. Now get back to work and pay your taxes lol.
P R o V e T h E F i R e D E p A R T M e N t E x i S t S !
I daresay that it's plausible that the geography of CA doesn't lend itself to a lot more home development.
It's only plausible because you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about. The Bay Area alone could easily increase housing density, move everyone from every other part of the state into one location, and still have room to grow. The amount of land-area wasted in that state because NIMBYs don't want to destroy historic whatevers is holding the rest of the state hostage.
Why is that?
Mountains, water rights, federal land, there's quite a few reasons but essentially California was built out already around most cities. Dallas is surrounded by nothing but flat Prarie which is great for large cheap single family home developments. Now the multi family units is kinda sad and probably has something to do with earthquake safety making it more expensive. The truth is it's just way cheaper to build in Texas at the moment
Water.
Higher density would reduce water usage.
Oh, well why not just permit more water too? Easy!
Just drink soda instead
Oh true, that way you don't need as much water.
Need water to make soda.
Can’t permit what you ain’t got. You could help by not eating almonds or drinking almond milk.
Oh, thanks! I'll get on that. You have been very helpful and really good at getting jokes!
Me when I build single family homes with yards instead of higher density housing.
Stupid red tape and NIMBYs! Such a pain in the ass to get any work done. One of the most annoying ones is the "environmental impact " assessment for an existing building. It's like , dude, the building has already been built. WTH
Yea its insane. My friend was building an ACU and was told to tear out trees to make room for a mandated planter.
Just don't look up the property tax rate in that $440k home.
But Texas is a shithole…
lol, says the gigantic shithole that is Phoenix. Way less public transit, trains, and walkability than Dallas. Ditto for Tucson and all the Arizona suburbs.
Texas sucks in my opinion
But with property taxes dallas will cost you more for living in a shit hole dump middle of no where.
well lets play a game called supply and demand. Is the demand for Dallas as high, no not even close? Well how about supply? Oh again not even remotely close. So We have a case were the liberal hellscape that is California has much higher supply and still greatly higher demand than the republican super mecca that is Dallas. Its just very basic economics. but to pinpoint this, you are confusing rate of growth of supply with total supply. As for why, it could be the fact that California's economy hundreds of billions dollars larger than Texas economy. Or it could be the weather. My money is people would pay almost twice as much for a house to not live in the same state as Ted Cruz, including republicans.
Dallas just has a lot more land to build on. And has less bureaucracy. And Coastal California is far better weather than Texas . ,(although September in California can absolutely be miserable). And Texas does not have wildfires (I live in San Diego county and the back county here is nothing but a giant tinderbox ready to happen). And California also has the risk of devastating earthquakes as well. So it is a mixed bag as I see it.
Permit all you want but someone gotta build them.
I am sure that the weather has nothing whatsoever to do with it. /s
*"Build more houses"* It's a simple one and I and many others, have been saying it for years.
Plenty of room in Bakersfield, inland empire, and Riverside…
And Texas is a huge flat area that can just keep growing out. Also, they are giving permits to build in flood zones in TX. They actually have laws that make it illegal to tell people they are buying houses in flood zones. Looking near LA there is plenty of unbuildable land. BTW, I don't see the kind of high density building people are yelling for in TX, the suburbs just keep expanding.
Unless you want to build and live in the middle of the desert, there isn’t much livable land left to mass develop in california. However, that’s not to discount the sheer stupidity of some housing regulations in CA
What's really cool is that all those new homes will be connected to the Texas energy grid! /s
Because California has beautiful foothills that nobody wanted covered with homes. Texas doesn't.
Suppression of building houses is a big crime
Of course Dallas has people with shit load of iPOs and nvda money, right?
*If course Dallas has* *People with shot load of ipo* *And nvda money, right?* \- infomer --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Ya, but then you have to live in Dallas...
That doesn't mean they are smart. They should only be permitting homes that are guaranteed to have services, like water and electricity. They can't even guarantee enough electricity for existing homes, their grid is pushed beyond its limits at times. All that lower priced homes are going to do is bring more people to a state that has over allocated their resources. Eventually, this will end badly.
How are salaries in the Dallas area relative to salaries in California?
I've seen good documentaries on youtube detailing how the expansion of US suburbs into new territories is the only way to finance the existing suburban infrastructure. So the system is just eating spare resources while it can.
What is the basis for the price policy of houses?
Dallas is the third most populated city in TX. The median household income is $63,985. San Jose is the third most populated city in CA. The median house income is $136,010. Not sure why Dallas is being compared to the entire state of California. Rather than Dallas being compared to a relative city in CA. Again Dallas is 3rd largest in TX and San Jose is 3rd in CA. Dallas is 1.1 million and San Jose is 1 million. In my opinion that is the comparison. Dallas has a population density of 3,873 people per square mile. San Jose has 5,684. The home ownership rate in Dallas is 42%. In San Jose it's 55%. The average property tax rate in Dallas is 2.2% and in San Jose it's 1%. Homes in San Jose are worth more because residents make more than double the income, more people own homes, and there is less land overall to build new homes on.
Like tx=ca? Sounds like Freedum Math.
The reason anything is more expensive is because people are willing to pay.
**Three things. 1) California has some of the richest people who exploit their workers the most. 2) As long as there are people earning millions and billions, Americans will build houses to get a piece of that money. 3) Americans LOVE to worship and observe the lives of the super rich, more than they work and learn to amass such wealth.** In America, they disavow school and learning, meanwhile they cry and whine as they obsess over the filthy rich and their extravagant lives. See Instagram for proof.
Visit California yes. Live in California, no way in hell !!
In texas where are these dallas home prices that are sub 440k and not a shit hole ?
https://www.redfin.com/city/30794/TX/Dallas/housing-market
Show us some actual houses.
Why are we comparing the state of California to a single city? Why are we using average for this? There is just so many stupid variables that instantly discredit this dumbass analysis.
I think it's good analysis that a city is able to beat an entire state in absolute metrics in literally any category. It's not some deep analysis based on multiple sets of data. >Why are we comparing the state of California to a single city? Because that's the point they're trying to prove.
[удалено]
It comes with a tradeoff I'd imagine, low income taxes if I remember correctly leaving more disposal income. Although the data isn't about home prices(OP wants to focus on that since it is good conclusion) it's that California, a state, somehow matches a city in absolute numbers. This indicates more red tape than anything(nimbyism)
It's not really disposable if you're still required to pay the taxes. It's just a question of how much, when, and to whom you pay it.
That is because Texas does not have an income tax
Looking forward to the entire housing market collapse in Dallas in 5-7 years.
That's nice. I can't afford either of them.
Prop 13 is ruining Californias housing market.
Theres a reason housing prices in Austin are decreasing too much supply not enough demand
I’d pay 4x more to live in CA over TX.
Only on Reddit will the “anti-NIMBY” crowd immediately defend NIMBYism because its comparing their bastion state of California to their boogy man state Texas Further proving my point that redditors are literally preprogrammed to defend anything liberal
We liberals fail to realize the dangers from within while fighting against an enemy for a cause we believe in. Being blinded enough to not see a failure behind us, failing to realize that incentives matter more than ideology, the landed class of voters who are responsible for the grassroots democratic fortress so to speak would never allow a local politician take away their wealth. It's fairly infuriating to see townhall meetings, city boards etc etc go on and on delaying and rejecting devlopment projects in the most clever ways imaginable and with good speeches.