Prop 13 ruins everything.
However, there doesn't really seem to be a way to actually repeal any of these laws.
Would there be many? Certainly, there were some cases pre-prop 13, but prop 13 wasn't narrowly focussed on protecting homeowners. Those were exploited as pretext, they weren't the motivation.
And you could make it protect homeowners while fixing the local government incentives by providing a refundable state income tax credit for 100% of the property tax due to assessed value increases beyond the existing Prop 13 limits. You could do this without or without, modifying the 1% fixed rate.
If you don't want that big of a subsidy, you could just allow homeowners to defer without penalty the excess amount until transfer of the property. Still stops people from being priced out of their homes.
If we'd begun a phase out in 2000, during the height of the tech boom, then by now Prop 13 would be gone and the housing situation would be much different.
Prop13 is a monster that will continue to exacerbate inequality. Families that owned homes in affluent areas pre-1970 will continue to pay artificially suppressed property tax rates in perpetuity, so long as they only transfer the house within their immediate family. In that way, Prop13 is a perverse incentive to suppress real estate transactions, which exacerbates the real estate issues we already have.
Because of tax limits established in 1978 by Proposition 13, local governments generally receive more revenue from sales and hotel room taxes than property taxes. Proposition 13 limited property tax rates to 1% of a home’s taxable value and restricted how quickly that taxable value could increase after a purchase.
Last year, Brisbane hired a consultant who found that the city would net $1 million a year in tax revenue by approving the Baylands. But if the city instead approved a project with lots more commercial space, a larger hotel and no housing, Brisbane would gain $9 million annually — an amount equivalent to more than half the city’s current day-to-day operating budget.
I have suggested before that tax incentives are part of why we have this issue. This isn't exactly the way I figured it was screwing things up, but it is evidence that tax structures are part of the problem.