Comment by fuzzfactor

>younger people getting into the housing market faster.

Most places have this but Florida also has much more retirees on fixed incomes.

There's another bunch of buyers who can barely afford to get in to begin with, so another target group to be jetissoned after everything they have to give has been extracted. If other expenses are rising due to inflation that's enough of a threat, but taxes will naturally need to rise faster than inflation and that's what puts young first-time buyers over the edge along with the seniors.

Unfortunately that's a lot who are in a more precarious position relative to rising costs of any kind.

The very, very worst of which are non-discretionary costs.

And taxes of any kind are the biggest threat in that category.

The primary purpose of property tax is to have a claim to the property by the taxing authority, first & foremost.

Not like there's any question.

If the "owner" can't pay the tax during any of the perpetually-occurring critical periods, the property is lost relatively quickly.

OTOH with regular & proper payment of the tax, it will eventually cost more in taxes than the purchase price to begin with. Inflation will accelerate this process dramatically and if the property happens to have appreciated, the total expenditure per year can easily be more than any average small business can afford. And that's for a property which was originally purchased on a single income. Compare that to the security and sustainability of having it bought and paid for outright instead.

Property taxes are one of the major factors that put single incomes out of the running.

Obviously there's a difference in the equations you would use if you were limited to theoretical approaches, compared to witnessing first-hand how neighborhoods can rise right out of the Everglades, become populated, then everybody get taxed out of there in more-or-less one generation. Repeatedly. So fast it would make their head spin in California.

By the time 1978 rolled around I was watching Proposition 13 with interest because Floridians were so much more desperate already. That's the type of future Calif voted to prevent. In pre-air-conditioning Florida we were just a canary being non-industrial small-town retirement communities, California was always affluent and crowded so they had critical mass to do something about it.

Without Proposition 13, this is what you get, or something like this.

The least destructive tax is only on commerce, all others prove detrimental if not devastating, depending on rate.

Not just bad for "the" market, worse for a "free market", and chips away at the fundamental wealth a community could better rely on otherwise.