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California Property Taxes Mapped

by vqc on 10/30/20, 11:48 PM with 103 comments

  • by twblalock on 10/31/20, 12:47 AM

    This is a good illustration of bad tax policy, specifically Prop 13.

    Zoom in on a residential street, particularly in the Bay Area, and you will see a row of houses which are roughly equivalent in value. Some homeowners pay several times as much annual property tax as their neighbors, because they bought their homes more recently and paid more for them.

    That's kind of insane, and nobody would design the property tax system that way if they were starting from scratch.

  • by buss on 10/31/20, 1:25 AM

    Best way to change this is to vote with YIMBY. Check out https://yimbyaction.org/endorsements

    Also, check out this organization I'm part of: https://techworkers.vote

  • by jedberg on 10/31/20, 1:44 AM

    On my block we have five nearly identical houses. My house, which I bought 12 years ago, my neighbors house, which they have been in for 22 years, my other neighbor, who has been there 45+ years, the neighbor two over who bought about five years ago, and the neighbor two over the other way who bought two weeks ago.

    If my tax bill is X, the rates are as follows, for nearly identical houses, all valued nearly the same on Zillow/Redfin:

        2.3X
    0.4X
    1.0X
    0.1X
    2.0X
    The two lowest payers don't have kids in school, so an argument could be made for them to have slightly lower taxes, but they still use the police, fire department, parks, and they have access to the senior center, which I do not.

    The rest of us have kids roughly the same age.

    So basically the people who just moved in are subsidizing the rest of us significantly.

    It's completely unfair.

  • by jjav on 10/31/20, 2:38 AM

    A see some data in my neighborhood which is weird.

    Comparing same model houses only (same as mine), tax rates are in the range of 5K to 8K. But just a couple of the same model houses are shown as $800 to $900! If I didn't know this neighborhood I would jump to the conclusion that those houses have been owned for so long that their taxes are so low and curse prop13.

    But, I've been in this neighborhood since it was built so I know the tax was never below 2K even on the first year of constructed.

    So either these outliers are just errors in the published records, or is there some tax exemption program in CA for people who qualify to some criteria?

    In any case, it does give the impression that the tax range for this model house is $800 to $8K (10x) when that is not true. It is really 5K to 8K.

  • by bradlys on 10/31/20, 1:09 AM

    I think I've seen this map before (it isn't loading as I write this). However, what I'd love to see is: What the property taxes are and what they would be if the property was purchased today. I'm not sure if an absolute amount or a percentage would be more impactful when comparing the two. I'm sure it hits hard to see your neighbors paying 10% of what you pay - but probably just as much seeing $2,000 vs $20,000 in assortments.

  • by xtiansimon on 10/31/20, 2:45 PM

    I support prop 13, and raising the tax on golf courses.

    Revisionist History A GOOD WALK SPOILED SEASON 2 - EP1 http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...

  • by foogazi on 10/31/20, 9:02 AM

    The solution of course is to remove prop 13 protection for commercial real estate