If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by crazygringo on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @08:31PM (#27455279)

I mean, you're basically arguing against property taxes. Sure, property taxes are a "pain", but so are all taxes. But yes, that's literally how property taxes work -- you don't get to live somewhere infinitely long without paying property taxes.

In practical terms though, property taxes aren't infinite -- they're only for as long as you're alive. And you can realize your increasing house price while you're alive too (or your kids can). And I know people who have come out very much ahead in that equation in certain gentrifying areas, e.g. turning a $30K investment in 1985 into an $8M sale in 2020.

So within reasonable "non-infinite" time frames, an increasing house price can be very, very, very much offsetting property taxes. That's just a fact.

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Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by rich_sasha on Thursday June 10, 2021 @02:28AM (#27457492)

> I mean, you're basically arguing against property taxes.

Not really. You’re saying it is no issue that tax goes up proportionally to house value, I’m saying it is much more onerous than, say, your income tax increasing with income.

Also, if the end objective is “pay tax to local government and make it so that wealthier people pay more”, there are tons of ways of doing it without this anti-feature. Slice of income tax, tax depending on property size (not price) etc.

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