Re: The Gentrification Two-Step

On 5/7/2024 12:50 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:

On Mon, 6 May 2024 18:27:30 -0700, anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net>
wrote:
>

Well that depends.
>
Now that I'm retired my income is WAY down though my assets haven't
changed significantly (mostly on the assessed value of my house which
keeps going up 3-7% per year)
>
In other words income tax is down, property tax is up - but in our
area we have 'tax deferment' where if you're 55+ you can defer the tax
portion of your assessment (which also includes municipal utilities
like water) at an interest rate about 1/2 of the prime rate. It's
payable either when I keel over or when the house is sold.
>

>
We don’t have anything like that. We have a county that arbitrarily sets
your property tax, depending on how much money they want to steal that year
and send armed policeman out to drag you out of your home if you don’t pay
it. But the beauty is I get no services from the county so it’s the perfect
swindle.
>

I mentioned an assessment authority - for us that's province-wide and
does a good job MOST of the time though I've seen some outrages
through the years.
>
For instance the assessment is supposed to be based on the land value
as of July 1st each year. One year our building got a 20% increase in
assessment (while the newspaper was reporting average assessment
increases were in the 3-4% range) and when I investigated it turned
out to be due to a building sold 2 blocks away (which I didn't object
to as the zoning and building type was similar) which sold at a price
per square foot but in OCTOBER the previous year AFTER the date which
allegedly the assessment was based on.
>
Unfortunately we were not owners but in a "triple net lease" (which is
the standard commercial lease in our parts where there's a single
lessee in the building and means rent + taxes, insurance and
maintenance) meaning that our landlord had no incentive to appeal an
onerous assessment. After all - if he put the property up for sale his
listing would be based on the higher price given "that's market for
buildings in this area"
>
Typically what municipalities do is total up the assessments by rate
class (residential, commerial, industrial and a few more obscure
classes) figure out how much they need to levy and work out a tax rate
for each category per $1000 of assessed value. Some categories are tax
exempt (public buildings like schools and parks) or other exemptions
(typically churches but usually ONLY the church not the adjacent
hall). Then there are some special cases like the church who had a
large parking lot and happened to be adjacent to the hockey rink and
on the edge of downtown - so they had paid parking 6 days a week, free
parking Sundays and received a 1/7th tax exemption but paid on their
parking revenue.
>

 Our valuations are based as near as we can tell on the average of sales in
the area. Last year we had that weird one month boom when the values of
homes literally doubled and then plunged down to about 2/3 of what they
started at. So my property tax went way up even though the value of the
house went way down.
 Oh, and they charge you a late fee “after May 1”
I paid it about noon May 1 and you guessed it. They charged the late fee.
 On the other hand, these stupid B&B party houses, which were what doubled
in value, they announced last night that the city is cracking down on them.
 

A LOT of cities are cracking down on the BnB type online short-term rentals.  They cause a lot of problems for neighborhoods and cities. IIRC the entire state of Hawaii is working on outlawing them.
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.