In the US, simply owning a house that's worth $3M (and literally zero other assets of any kind) puts you in the top 1.5% of the wealth distribution, per the WID. So I'm not sure how you could classify this scenario as "moderately wealthy trying to leave the working class." More like "extremely wealthy people trying to become even more wealthy."

The people who live in hot real estate areas for years made them the hot real estate areas. Real estate appreciation isn't free money. It's people who risked moving into an area and brought their culture with them. This is what creates the value.

Just because middle class people benefit from the subsidy of low interest rates that create asset bubbles does not mean that the people who raised families in a neighbourhood or a city are somehow undeserving of the rewards on their equity.

The idea that money not taken in taxes is an "expenditure," or an advantage, and this idea of accounting for the hypothetical opportunity cost of not taking some peoples money as a tax privilege is bizzare.

>brought their culture with them.

Yikes. Do you really think places like SOMA, SLU, DTLA, etc. got better because rich people brought their 'culture' there? I'd recommend you visit said places and see for yourself, most of the 'culture' is in adjacent (usually historically minority) neighborhoods.

Specifically, I said that rich(er) people go to those places because the people who were there before them made those places appealing. Poor(er) people who made due and built a community with businesses and neighboors that attracted others. As for why people who say 'yikes' seem to scare so easily, the concern is noted and ignored.

In those places there is a huge value difference between the adjacent neighborhoods and the rich neighborhoods. This is primarily due to a culture of stability and safety

What are you trying to say? That DTLA is safer/cheaper than Little Tokyo (you're wrong)? That SOMA is safer than the Mission(you're wrong)? That SLU is safer than Capitol Hill(you're wrong)?

> in adjacent (usually historically minority) neighborhoods.

These are the people that brought their culture. Their housing is probably also well appreciated.

It's amazing how often people on HN think that working class minorities have equal access to owning their own homes, despite huge evidence to the contrary.

https://usafacts.org/articles/homeownership-rates-by-race/

"Well, this tax might still hit someone at the upper-upper-end of the middle class if they live in the fastest-appreciating real estate market in history" seems equivalent to admitting that it does not hit the middle class generally.