The Annoyed Man wrote:If anyone is dumb enough to think that, by helping poor people buy "affordable housing" in Southlake, those same poor people will be able to afford Southlake's property tax rates, that person is dumber than a bag of hammers. Why? Because, Tarrant County's tax rates will be based on the assessed value of the home, not the federal government-subsidy the buyer used to help pay for it......and the county has the right to reassess that property's value up or down as it sees fit......and it never goes down.
I don't think there is really going to be much buying as opposed to renting (although I suppose it's possible the rest of us will just have to pay their taxes and their mortgage). In any case, either the Section 8 crowd will be renters, and the rest of us will be paying, or they'll be buyers and the rest of us will still be paying. My guess is that if the program extends to buyers the government will be either subsidizing or paying the entire mortgage including property taxes and insurance.
Chicago was paying Section 8 renters up to $3,200 a month to rent upscale apartments, and recently lowered the payouts some due to a lot of negative publicity. In apartment complexes the incentive is an upfront 20% payday for the developers before a single paying renter appears. The flip-side is that In some cases in more upscale complexes the Section 8 payday has bankrupted the entire project because the Section 8 renters drove out most of the other paying occupants. Why pay your $3200 a month rent and your neighbor's rent and then have to put up with the same kind of neighbors and behavior you were paying the $3200 to escape from in the first place?
From comments I've read following various articles the current system has already destroyed numerous urban communities throughout the country and Texas. BTW, I don't know about assessments "never" going down. We sold a place in town and bought a place with acreage out in the country. The acreage assessment has increased about 800% since 2009, however, the homestead portion did actually decrease some over that period of time. Not that it matters much, since the taxes on the homestead are a very small portion of the total and that went up 50% over last year.
Conversely, the place we sold in town was assessed for some $45K more than what we could sell it for (mid 2014). The assessment went down to match the sales price, so the new owner got a few months at the reduced rate. Come 2015 though, the assessment went back up by $135K, so it didn't last long. Current taxes on the property are $8,000 per year, about $2,000 more than what we were paying before we sold. But you're right in the main....the overall trend isn't just up, but up in a steep near stall climb.
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