I do not think elderly invested wisely. Cities grew. They got lucky. It's as simply as that. The remote working is taking pressure off the cities. And you can see many crying about return to office, who have multi year leaseholds or own the buildings.

I specifically called out that this is a minority situation, so the characterization you put forward seems like a wild overstatement.

Some seniors bought post ww2 bonds at phenomenal rates. There were many ppl who made wise investments, regardless. Patience turned thousands into hundreds of thousands outside of the housing prices.

Except, while it was always rhetorically useful to talk about seniors with limited and fixed incomes being able to stay in their homes, Prop 13 also benefits people with multiple homes, landlords with rental properties, kids inheriting their parents house and running it as an AirBnb, etc. It benefits _corporations_ and non-residential property. Corporations can also skirt around it by not triggering a reassessment by not transferring ownership all at once.

Meanwhile, why are only senior home owners worthy of that stability? Why do seniors who rent not get rent stabilization as a matter of law?

If this were really motivated out of altruistic concern for vulnerable retirees, the law would look very different.

> kids inheriting their parents house and running it as an AirBnb

This doesn't exist anymore as of Prop 19. If an inherited home is not primary residence, it is taxed at full market value.

Oh, right I'm sorry, since the beginning of 2021 if you inherit a home in CA you should move into it and run your _prior_ home as an AirBnb. My understanding is you need to make it your 'primary residence' within 1 year, but it doesn't say how long it must remain your primary residence?

With the "portability" affordances for people over 55, and with the special treatment of farms, I think there's still plenty of room for heirs to receive properties with ridiculously low assessments. A savvy person trying to give the greatest tax advantage to their heirs would sell their property with the lowest assessment, and buy the most expensive property they can, make it their permanent residence, and leave it to a child or grandchild.

In combination with the special treatment for farms, I think there's plenty of room left for people to inherit property which they don't actually need, with ridiculously low assessments.

That doesn't mean they should be excused from paying their fair share, especially since the elderly make greater use of public services. Float the tax rates to the market level and allow fixed income elderly to accrue a lien against the property that can be paid out of the estate when they die.

The question was why, and fixed income is the rationale. How effective it is or what you or I or the voters think is fair, is incidental.

How is it incidental? Its a bad answer for why because there is a way to solve the problem you described without letting the elderly freeload off the backs of the young.

Fixed incomes while complaining that their land is going up in value which lead to high property taxes? That kind of thing?

This was an argument for prop 13. The GP seemed to be puzzled about the reasoning, when it was sold to voters on this simple premise.