I'm reminded of all the boomers who said that one should simply work a summer job to pay for college, and then simply get a job when the degree is done...

My impression, as a person under 60, is that the older land-owning generation largely had things much, much easier, and have been blissfully unaware of the changes society has undergone. Or else perfectly aware, but unwilling to recognize their debts to society and circumstance and pay it forward.

Those low property taxes translate directly into booming tuition, as the state funding for higher education has been systematically gutted. The higher tuitions, in turn, imply massive student debt. Simply get a summer job, rite?

As for me? I work where it makes most sense for me to work. Not-working can happen anywhere.

So for retirees, my advice is this: Sell the house, take the millions of dollars in windfall, and go to Bali or Florida or something already. I'm sorry if you have to make new friends; please consider this outcome the next time you settle for a societal structure without robust community. But in getting out, you'll reduce the demand pressure slightly, improve the depressed tax base, and have enough money for a long, long vacation.

Higher education costs has zero to do with property taxes. One pitchfork at a time.

> Higher education costs has zero to do with property taxes

In California they are linked, in that property tax rollback and the procedural impediments to raising other taxes at either state or local levels were part of the same initiative constitutional amendment.

I've gotten offers from places like this, the pay deduction is staggering. If I got an offer that paid even the median of what I can make on the coasts, in a place like upstate New York I would get out of the coasts in a heartbeat and buy a house.

How do you justify people occupying extremely valuable land that they aren’t using to anything close to its potential, while also not paying anything close to their share of the taxes that keep the local government afloat?

My big problem is not merely keeping their own land under-developed, but that there is a huge overlap between these squatters and NIMBYism to prevent me from using the land to its potential, even if I manage to buy property from one of their neighbors.

Ok, so it is about using taxes to push people you don’t like out?

What makes a particular property owner into a ‘squatter’?

It is not about using taxes to push people out. The feudal nature of Prop 13 is a problem, but people eventually leave anyway. Once the owner leaves, the new owner should be able to bring it to its full potential by building apartments and condos. In most of the country, including the vast majority of the land in every city in California, this is illegal. The only way to maximize the value of the land is to turn it into luxury housing.

Prop 13 is a blunt instrument that rewards speculators more than it protects homeowners. What would be a much better system is some sort of forbearance, that the owner does not have to pay the full property tax until the property is sold, and then the back taxes are paid from the profits.

Immortal entities like corporations should not have Prop 13 protection.

They pretty clearly said that it’s about being prevented from using their own property the way they want.

Sure - but this is just indication that there is a small group of people that the poster has a beef with vs the huge group who would be adversely affected I.e. all homeowners.

Unless you take seriously the idea that most homeowners in California are squatters and NIMBYs.

How do you justify anyone owning anything and not using it to it’s ‘potential’?

More importantly who do you think should decide what the ‘potential’ is for what you own?

The market value is a pretty reasonable way to determine the potential.

That seems like a great argument for abolishing property taxes.