I just wanted to put something on your radar... it may or not "be a thing" yet.
But as I considered filing for a property tax appeal this year, I seem to have stumbled on a pattern of houses in my neighborhood owned by private equity rental investment groups seem to consistently be valued WAY lower than identical house plans in same subdivision... even ones that were purchased at a higher price within the last two or three years. How do you buy a house for $395,000 in 2023 and now have a tax appraisal of only $281,680. Meanwhile, my house that hasn't had any significant interior upgrades since it was built is supposedly worth $40,000 more this year than it was last year.
A house with my exact floor plan, owned by Progress Residential has a tax appraisal that's $100,000 less than the tax assessor came up with for my house. I don't understand how that's even possible.
I'm in the process of putting the data into a crude spreadsheet to see if my initial pattern seems to hold across the board.
Wouldn't it be SUPER EFFED UP, to find out, not only are these companies buying up houses by the thousands and driving up prices for both rent and purchases... but that they ALSO might be receiving preferential lowered tax assessments, resulting in lower tax liability?
I don't understand how these lower assessments can be in the county's interest. And it has me wondering if my local tax assessor (and potentially others) aren't being influenced in some way that benefits them personally.
Just as how much of Congress, my state of California’s legislature, or my city and county in the San Francisco Bay Area is beholden to donors and their lobbyists, I think that your local county and city/town government is as well. The individual politicians (and government inspectors) are essentially bribed. Even in this era of money is free speech, it very likely could be illegal especially if you could show side by side examples, but so long as nobody knows, nothing happens. Even the more economically extreme conservatives are likely to be unhappy with this with everyone just enraged.
It’s challenging to read this all in one sitting, and that’s good because the stories are vivid and needed. It’s time to study histories of tenant struggles, whether it be through rent strikes or people teaming up with architects to save their neighborhoods (yes!). It’s going to be a hard struggle, but economic collapse will have to force struggling people to organize.
Here in Philly, as a 2nd tier city, we’ve had a lot of transplants from New York, Boston, DC etc the last decade as residents get priced out of those places.
We have gentrification and housing shortages driving up prices here too, and homelessness problems, but I think they are nowhere near as extreme as in 1st tier cities.
I agree private equity is a major problem coming into single family homes markets. I think some regulation could fix that. But good luck with our broken Congress
But one arena where we have enormous problems is over regulation in housing construction and zoning. The most progressive cities tend to have the most restrictive building codes. Much of this is necessary but much is not. There should be no surprise we have urban housing shortages when we’ve made it very difficult, lengthy and expensive to build anything. Especially difficult to build to service the lower end of the housing market in that environment.
this is truly eye opening. if you are not familiar with it, you might want to look at today's post in Popular Information about an FBI raid on a corporate property ownership company and potential anti-trust actions against corporate property owners/landlords https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating
I'm honored to be mentioned in this article regarding this issue as it's unfolded in Upstate NY! Thanks so much for all of your work in highlighting this important concern that so many of us have. I think it would be great to name some action steps we can take to organize around it. As you mentioned, community organizing is a crucial step we can all take, but I think therein lies the stopping point for many folks. Many of us simply don't know what to do from here that could help make a difference. Putting mobilization steps on the table could be so helpful, so folks don't feel so helpless. That's a conversation I would love to participate in.
Elizabeth, your thoughts were so helpful! Glad we could include them. Important point - what's next? Hoping to make this a regular series of writing, and start addressing that next! Don't want to leave it with despair. Not sure if there's any tenant efforts in your area, where I've been living there isn't, and it's hard to know what to do when there's no organized efforts like some cities are starting to have.
Finally bought my 1st house in Cape May County , NJ in my forties with my partner. Paid $250k, now houses half the size are $500k+ I’m 62, can’t physically handle the maintenance, kids grown. Want to downsize but no way can I afford a $500k house at current mortgage rates in retirement. I would love to see my home go to a young growing family but where would I go? All my kids n grandkids are in the area. So, I sit and can’t keep up with the maintenance.
The section about Colorado really broke my heart. For most of my life I had numerous family members who had lived in the rural western mountain towns for their entire lives. They’ve since been priced out by work from home gentrifiers (gas and food prices were also a significant factor) and the towns are so different now, both in appearance and social attitudes. I’ve wanted to live in the mountains with my family my entire life but even if I could afford it, I’m not sure I’d want to live there with these new people (I don’t ski, can’t afford it, and I can’t stand ski culture). But Denver and the Front Range are not much better so I’m not sure I can stay in my hometown either. Thank you for bringing this growing issue to more people’s attention.
The comment about wealthy people crapping on rural communities and using them and leaving them behind really hit home. I live in a tiny (250 people) town on the southern Oregon coast, and we saw that dynamic during the pandemic. Our local store did a great job staying stocked with necessities, as did the bigger stores in the towns on either side of us.
Well, word got out about that- more than once I would be shopping and hear someone on the phone to a friend complaining about what a shithole our area is, but how the stores still had toilet paper and how many packages should they bring back? The times I did ask people where they were from it was usually the inland valley towns like Eugene and Salem, sometimes even Portland. They were thrilled to discover a “trick” to drive out and get what they needed and leave behind a dose of covid for us, and they likely never thought of us again as soon as they pulled out of town.
Yet during that same time, I actually heard an interview with a politician talking about infrastructure readiness for disaster, and he literally said that if something happened, the investments to rebuild would be in cities like Portland and not “some rural road out on the coast”. This attitude is probably why the main highway through here is falling into the ocean and not getting fixed.
City folks, especially the liberal ones, don’t seem to understand why rural people resent them so much, they seem to think that we should understand and be grateful for all they do for us. But whatever that supposedly is, we don’t see it here, we’re just on our own most of the time, and even though I am a staunch leftie, I completely understand the hard swing to the right I see in my neighbours.
In my immediate area, most of the land is generational farms and ranches that continue to be modestly profitable, which is a blessing in some ways because it ties up hundreds of acres and protects them from out of area “investments” and developments like in other parts of the state. But even so, the AirBnB factor is big here in the few houses that do come up for sale, and houses are selling for more than twice what they did when we moved here 10 years ago.
I feel so lucky to be in this little valley of people who know each other, and who are doing ok and getting by, especially compared to the town south of us, which was a fishing village, and the areas north, which were logging towns. Climate change and greed have ended those industries, and it shows in the parks and streets full of tent camps and the more than a mile long line for the tiny food bank’s weekly open day.
I've also been through the areas of Oregon that you're talking about recently, and it's even more intense than in western Montana, I was shocked. Glad there are people thinking like yourself in rural areas able to see the complexity of it.
Kia Ora tatou, I’m also from Aotearoa New Zealand. We have a housing crisis here too, as mentioned in the article. Queenstown is a popular tourist place where nobody can afford to live. In small towns there are simply no houses. People pay half their income in rent. I live with my former partner because I can’t afford to rent, we own a house together and I am very, very lucky to live here. I’ve just been made redundant as the right wing government here is gutting the public service. I would be shitting myself if I had to pay rent
I grew up in Snohomish County, WA. My dad's family have lived in rural King and Snohomish counties since the 1890's. Most of us can't afford to live around there anymore. Also, rural jobs- small farms, dairies, lumber, fishing, feed and grain- these don't exist anymore in a meaningful way. The few farms left are either grandfathered in (thank goodness) or are 'hobby farms' for rich techies/lawyers. Believe me, I have worked on farms, landscaping, gardening since I was a teenager.
Re: Gentrification in other countries, my wife (an Indonesian citizen) and myself are temporarily staying in Bali. The amount of gentrification here (around Denpasar) is INSANE and tragic. Dirt poor workmen live in shanties and work for less than 10 $ a day, building 'villas' where wealthy techies and 'social media influencers' live. The rice fields that used to provide food and employment for locals are being bulldozed to make way for more 'villas' every day. Meanwhile, Indonesia has to import rice from Thailand... (wonder why?). As in America, greedy politicians are a big part of the problem, creating tax incentives for foreign investors.
May I point to the joke that is the minimum wage in most of the country? Where I live in California, a person would need about $31 per hour just to barely survive in a small one bedroom apartment. Actually this probably describes the entire state with the minimum wage needed being higher.
Hey Joshua,
I just wanted to put something on your radar... it may or not "be a thing" yet.
But as I considered filing for a property tax appeal this year, I seem to have stumbled on a pattern of houses in my neighborhood owned by private equity rental investment groups seem to consistently be valued WAY lower than identical house plans in same subdivision... even ones that were purchased at a higher price within the last two or three years. How do you buy a house for $395,000 in 2023 and now have a tax appraisal of only $281,680. Meanwhile, my house that hasn't had any significant interior upgrades since it was built is supposedly worth $40,000 more this year than it was last year.
A house with my exact floor plan, owned by Progress Residential has a tax appraisal that's $100,000 less than the tax assessor came up with for my house. I don't understand how that's even possible.
I'm in the process of putting the data into a crude spreadsheet to see if my initial pattern seems to hold across the board.
Wouldn't it be SUPER EFFED UP, to find out, not only are these companies buying up houses by the thousands and driving up prices for both rent and purchases... but that they ALSO might be receiving preferential lowered tax assessments, resulting in lower tax liability?
I don't understand how these lower assessments can be in the county's interest. And it has me wondering if my local tax assessor (and potentially others) aren't being influenced in some way that benefits them personally.
Just as how much of Congress, my state of California’s legislature, or my city and county in the San Francisco Bay Area is beholden to donors and their lobbyists, I think that your local county and city/town government is as well. The individual politicians (and government inspectors) are essentially bribed. Even in this era of money is free speech, it very likely could be illegal especially if you could show side by side examples, but so long as nobody knows, nothing happens. Even the more economically extreme conservatives are likely to be unhappy with this with everyone just enraged.
It’s challenging to read this all in one sitting, and that’s good because the stories are vivid and needed. It’s time to study histories of tenant struggles, whether it be through rent strikes or people teaming up with architects to save their neighborhoods (yes!). It’s going to be a hard struggle, but economic collapse will have to force struggling people to organize.
Here in Philly, as a 2nd tier city, we’ve had a lot of transplants from New York, Boston, DC etc the last decade as residents get priced out of those places.
We have gentrification and housing shortages driving up prices here too, and homelessness problems, but I think they are nowhere near as extreme as in 1st tier cities.
I agree private equity is a major problem coming into single family homes markets. I think some regulation could fix that. But good luck with our broken Congress
But one arena where we have enormous problems is over regulation in housing construction and zoning. The most progressive cities tend to have the most restrictive building codes. Much of this is necessary but much is not. There should be no surprise we have urban housing shortages when we’ve made it very difficult, lengthy and expensive to build anything. Especially difficult to build to service the lower end of the housing market in that environment.
No corporation should be allowed to own single family homes, for starters. Also too fuck Air BnB
Ugly truck so says I and my grandsons. Elon should ride that to outer space bye buddy good ridence
this is truly eye opening. if you are not familiar with it, you might want to look at today's post in Popular Information about an FBI raid on a corporate property ownership company and potential anti-trust actions against corporate property owners/landlords https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating
Outstanding article!
I'm honored to be mentioned in this article regarding this issue as it's unfolded in Upstate NY! Thanks so much for all of your work in highlighting this important concern that so many of us have. I think it would be great to name some action steps we can take to organize around it. As you mentioned, community organizing is a crucial step we can all take, but I think therein lies the stopping point for many folks. Many of us simply don't know what to do from here that could help make a difference. Putting mobilization steps on the table could be so helpful, so folks don't feel so helpless. That's a conversation I would love to participate in.
Warmly,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth, your thoughts were so helpful! Glad we could include them. Important point - what's next? Hoping to make this a regular series of writing, and start addressing that next! Don't want to leave it with despair. Not sure if there's any tenant efforts in your area, where I've been living there isn't, and it's hard to know what to do when there's no organized efforts like some cities are starting to have.
Finally bought my 1st house in Cape May County , NJ in my forties with my partner. Paid $250k, now houses half the size are $500k+ I’m 62, can’t physically handle the maintenance, kids grown. Want to downsize but no way can I afford a $500k house at current mortgage rates in retirement. I would love to see my home go to a young growing family but where would I go? All my kids n grandkids are in the area. So, I sit and can’t keep up with the maintenance.
The section about Colorado really broke my heart. For most of my life I had numerous family members who had lived in the rural western mountain towns for their entire lives. They’ve since been priced out by work from home gentrifiers (gas and food prices were also a significant factor) and the towns are so different now, both in appearance and social attitudes. I’ve wanted to live in the mountains with my family my entire life but even if I could afford it, I’m not sure I’d want to live there with these new people (I don’t ski, can’t afford it, and I can’t stand ski culture). But Denver and the Front Range are not much better so I’m not sure I can stay in my hometown either. Thank you for bringing this growing issue to more people’s attention.
The comment about wealthy people crapping on rural communities and using them and leaving them behind really hit home. I live in a tiny (250 people) town on the southern Oregon coast, and we saw that dynamic during the pandemic. Our local store did a great job staying stocked with necessities, as did the bigger stores in the towns on either side of us.
Well, word got out about that- more than once I would be shopping and hear someone on the phone to a friend complaining about what a shithole our area is, but how the stores still had toilet paper and how many packages should they bring back? The times I did ask people where they were from it was usually the inland valley towns like Eugene and Salem, sometimes even Portland. They were thrilled to discover a “trick” to drive out and get what they needed and leave behind a dose of covid for us, and they likely never thought of us again as soon as they pulled out of town.
Yet during that same time, I actually heard an interview with a politician talking about infrastructure readiness for disaster, and he literally said that if something happened, the investments to rebuild would be in cities like Portland and not “some rural road out on the coast”. This attitude is probably why the main highway through here is falling into the ocean and not getting fixed.
City folks, especially the liberal ones, don’t seem to understand why rural people resent them so much, they seem to think that we should understand and be grateful for all they do for us. But whatever that supposedly is, we don’t see it here, we’re just on our own most of the time, and even though I am a staunch leftie, I completely understand the hard swing to the right I see in my neighbours.
In my immediate area, most of the land is generational farms and ranches that continue to be modestly profitable, which is a blessing in some ways because it ties up hundreds of acres and protects them from out of area “investments” and developments like in other parts of the state. But even so, the AirBnB factor is big here in the few houses that do come up for sale, and houses are selling for more than twice what they did when we moved here 10 years ago.
I feel so lucky to be in this little valley of people who know each other, and who are doing ok and getting by, especially compared to the town south of us, which was a fishing village, and the areas north, which were logging towns. Climate change and greed have ended those industries, and it shows in the parks and streets full of tent camps and the more than a mile long line for the tiny food bank’s weekly open day.
Crucial points - I grew up in a small town in Montana that's exploded in population during the pandemic, and a lot of what you say is relatable. I wrote about that here, if you're interested: https://spiritofsolidarity.substack.com/p/yellowstone-and-the-countryfication
I've also been through the areas of Oregon that you're talking about recently, and it's even more intense than in western Montana, I was shocked. Glad there are people thinking like yourself in rural areas able to see the complexity of it.
Kia Ora tatou, I’m also from Aotearoa New Zealand. We have a housing crisis here too, as mentioned in the article. Queenstown is a popular tourist place where nobody can afford to live. In small towns there are simply no houses. People pay half their income in rent. I live with my former partner because I can’t afford to rent, we own a house together and I am very, very lucky to live here. I’ve just been made redundant as the right wing government here is gutting the public service. I would be shitting myself if I had to pay rent
I grew up in Snohomish County, WA. My dad's family have lived in rural King and Snohomish counties since the 1890's. Most of us can't afford to live around there anymore. Also, rural jobs- small farms, dairies, lumber, fishing, feed and grain- these don't exist anymore in a meaningful way. The few farms left are either grandfathered in (thank goodness) or are 'hobby farms' for rich techies/lawyers. Believe me, I have worked on farms, landscaping, gardening since I was a teenager.
Re: Gentrification in other countries, my wife (an Indonesian citizen) and myself are temporarily staying in Bali. The amount of gentrification here (around Denpasar) is INSANE and tragic. Dirt poor workmen live in shanties and work for less than 10 $ a day, building 'villas' where wealthy techies and 'social media influencers' live. The rice fields that used to provide food and employment for locals are being bulldozed to make way for more 'villas' every day. Meanwhile, Indonesia has to import rice from Thailand... (wonder why?). As in America, greedy politicians are a big part of the problem, creating tax incentives for foreign investors.
May I point to the joke that is the minimum wage in most of the country? Where I live in California, a person would need about $31 per hour just to barely survive in a small one bedroom apartment. Actually this probably describes the entire state with the minimum wage needed being higher.
Those fucking things. Even the Hummers look pretty by comparison. Garbage vehicle for trash people
Calling people trash is a rather harsh label, I think, but saying that they have too much money and far too little taste seems right.
Remember there has to be a greedy local seller gleefully selling for a higher price or charging more for rent.
People moving in aren't raising prices. It's in their interest to pay as little as possible. That's why they're moving there.
Land in Big Sur used to be cheaper than Iowa farmland because there was no water.
You could buy a small house on the beach in Ventura county or a bigger tract home inland for $25,000 in late 60s.
Bob Dylan paid $50 a month for a cold water apartment in Greenwich village in the 60s too.
So what?
The solution is zeroing out the value of homes and regulating land value.
Of course existing homeowners would lose a lot but anything for the revolution.