Their only real shot at staying housed without a bunch of other retired and poverty stricken roommates is to have already paid off a home. Their financial situation is very likely to never significantly improve again for the rest of their lives.

I dunno why you think old people who didn’t save enough for retirement should automatically get to live a good life by making the housing market worse for younger people. When you’re poor, life sucks, that’s how it is.

What’s the sense in forcing them out of their home

To free up housing stock and keep liquidity and supply in the housing market. To undo the crystallization we see in the market with old people clutching to their houses with all their might. To reduce the overwhelming cost of purchasing ones first home.

Sometimes, when you can’t afford something, you need to sell it and get a cheaper version. When that thing is a house, sometimes you need to move away. I see no reason why old people should be exempt from this.

Instead what we should be doing is guaranteeing that crops will sell. Pay the property tax, use the land, and if your harvest fails at market, then the government covers the gap.

That’s literally how it already works.

It is mathematically impossible for someone in poverty to be unable to afford property taxes, because if their property valuation is so high that taxes are a burden, they’re not poor. They can sell and pay rent in a more modest place. And yes, if the housing market happens to be whackadoodle and despite the sale proceeds they still can’t afford rent for some reason, then they’d be eligible for subsidies.

the obvious choice is to increase taxes on those with a gross excess

Including people whose homes, through no hard work of their own, have ballooned to incredible value.

A person who becomes a millionaire through property value increase is even less deserving of tax breaks than a business owner who makes a million dollars. At least the business owner probably put some work into earning the money.

I agree it’s reasonable for housing to be a right, but I disagree that home ownership should be a right.

A big part of why housing prices are outpacing general inflation is constrained supply due to long time homeowners paying artificially low taxes.

Like I said, do a reverse mortgage. You shouldn’t get to lock in minuscule tax rates forever.

Yeah but not the same level of taxes as some rich dude with a country estate. Farms serve an important function.

Prop 13 should also not apply to inherited houses. It’s creating a class of landed gentry who were lucky enough to have parents living near the housing boom, and pricing out anyone who moved here in the last 20 years.

Theoretically, in a democracy, we ARE the government.

If your home is now worth millions, you’re now rich and can afford the taxes. If you have no income, sell the house. If you want to live in it, do a reverse mortgage. If you want to pass on your house to your heirs, creating generational wealth while not paying your share of taxes now, fuck you, pay up.

Capital gains absolutely apply to primary home sales. You’re just allowed to exclude the first $250k of gains, or $500k if married filing joint.

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc701

You’d have to earn the money to purchase your off-grid setup in the first place.

Farms & ranches would have to be exempt. There are some cases where it’s legit important to have a large land area.

I propose exempting high-density apartment and condo buildings from the taxes. Developers may be building those residences for their own cynical profit motives, but it does happen to greatly benefit society.

“I don’t understand how inflation works and I’m blaming government for it”

I paid off my house to avoid a 20k female flood insurance bill

Female flood sounds interesting

Are you denying that this is the American situation?

Absolutely I am.

You people are just as foolish and easily propagandized as the fascists. I miss the days when despite your foolishness, you would at least help fight against fascism instead of spending all your energy attacking Democrats.

You refuse to vote for the candidate running against fascism, and then when she loses, you bitch and moan that she didn’t do enough. You’re like children, with your nonsensical temper tantrums. When pressed to the point that you finally give details, you say “well Democrats should have done x, y, and z” and are astonished to find that Democrats have been doing x, y, and z since before you ever cared about politics. “That wasn’t on my TikTok feed!!!”

Harris didn’t fail. AOC didn’t fail. Gretchen Whitmer didn’t fail. Gavin Newsom didn’t fail.

YOU failed. All of you who withheld your votes and your support.

Respectfully, I think you don’t understand the American political situation very well. The description you gave of Democrats more accurately describes many of the supposed “Leftist” parties in the US (like the Greens). And the right wing absolutely does not call Democrats reasonable. If Democrats suggested using an umbrella during rain, Republicans would call it treason and immoral and declare rain to be fake.

It’s even more funny that it turned out to be a reasonable question.