With a runup in home values sparking higher property taxes for many Georgia homeowners, there is a groundswell among state lawmakers in this election year to provide relief.
Georgia’s Senate Finance Committee plans a hearing on Monday on a bill limiting increases in a home’s value, as assessed for property tax purposes, to 3% per year. The limit would last as long as the owner maintained a homestead exemption. Voters would have to approve the plan in a November referendum.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington proposes doubling the state’s homestead tax exemption, a measure likely to cut tax bills by nearly $100 million statewide.
Again, to someone who is not selling their home, there is no “actual value” being increased. It’s not like someone is coming around and saying “Hey, your house is pretty run down… would you like $40k in free renovations? Please note that this will increase your property taxes due to the improvements.” It’s because of supply and demand, and low mortgage rates driving an increase in people buying homes, and the real thing you should be railing against are the habitual landlords buying tons of properties to rent, not the families who own a home that they live in. They are not the problem.
Edit: To add some context to this, there are currently ~28 vacant homes in the US for every homeless person. It’s not a matter of there not being enough homes out there - there would be plenty, if every home was owned by one family. Far more than enough. It’s folks buying up swaths of land to rent out, and price fixing those rentals, that are causing the problems, both for families who can afford to buy homes, and for people who are renting.
Do you not understand how that involves an increase in value?
It’s a value increase on paper only; there’s no material value being created. Again, it’s only benefitting people who are selling their home.
There’s also no material value being created when the price of a stored commodity goes up because of fluctuations in supply and demand, but that doesn’t make the change in value any less real. There’s no material value being created in a specific property when a business moves in across the town, but that doesn’t make the increase any less real. I don’t know how this issue is supposed to be discussed if we’re disregarding the notion of property value outside of material improvements to the property itself.