Well, no, California has Prop 13, because wealthy investors in property used constructed images of that scenario to build support for a law to transfer more wealth to the already wealthy, not because its was a real problem (and, even if it was, Prop 13 doesn’t focus on dealing with that problem.)

> not because its was a real problem (and, even if it was, Prop 13 doesn’t focus on dealing with that problem.)

California politicians were working on solutions to the property tax problem for years. The same year prop 13 was on ballot, something else was on ballot to fix the problem, which would have done a much better, targeted job - but unfortunately big money poured into prop 13 and that got passed.

My parents bought a new house in 73, and by the time prop 13 passed it was worth around 3x the purchase price. They both worked in tech and were close to having to sell their house (they had 4 kids).

It was a real problem, prop 13 was just a bad solution.

There are problems with prop 13, but it does prevent people from being kicked out of their owned homes for temporary market conditions that are out of their control.

Imho the problem was that the politics of the day got it passed to cover commercial properties too, when it really should just cover primary residences. And not secondary homes or rental properties.

The California Tax Postponment Program prevents displacement of low income seniors and the disabled. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

These programs often have terrible red tape and even awareness problems. They also ignore people who aren’t seniors but may be going through temporary rough spots. I prefer to have the prop 13 rules fundamentally built in an applied to all primary residences as a measure to provide a more universal stability of a home.

> These programs often have terrible red tape and even awareness problems.

Prop 13 is $30B (billion!) per year. Surely there are cheaper ways to fix the "red tape" and "awareness problems",

I would prefer that prop13 did not apply to commercial property, and that it only applied to the first 500k of home value.

Towns normally set the property tax rate to meet their budget, so appraisals increasing across the board would not increase you property taxes.

Prop 13 leads to perverse outcomes like subsidizing slums and trust fund kids while penalizing new homeowners and people improving their property. It's also simply unjust for two neighbors with similar properties to pay different rates based on their age or even ancestry.

I say it is unjust for a fixed income senior citizen or disability insurance recipient to have their property tax base grow to a point where they must flee their home of decades. The callus answer is to force the person to sell and take their gains and move so a younger person with higher wages can afford their once-home. I think it is unjust to remove an older, less abled, and less employment-opportunitied person from their environment.

I replied elsewhere: nobody is having to flee anything. If they would rather sell and keep gains rather than spend them to continue living there, that's their choice.