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Dayton is becoming one place where first-time homebuyers can afford the market. ...
While this is certainly true, the corollary is that unless market conditions substantially change (which is unlikely), when it comes time or these first-time buyers to trade up, or to relocate, they will find precious little home-equity accumulated. Meanwhile they will have paid a high percentage of their property value in property tax. I don't mean to turn this into a rent vs. buy debate, but I do wish to point out that persistently low housing prices do have their down side. One such downside is reduction of mobility. If in 20 years, one's house has not appreciated in value, but houses in most of the nation have appreciated, then one becomes locked into one's current domicile.
While this is certainly true, the corollary is that unless market conditions substantially change (which is unlikely), when it comes time or these first-time buyers to trade up, or to relocate, they will find precious little home-equity accumulated. Meanwhile they will have paid a high percentage of their property value in property tax. I don't mean to turn this into a rent vs. buy debate, but I do wish to point out that persistently low housing prices do have their down side. One such downside is reduction of mobility. If in 20 years, one's house has not appreciated in value, but houses in most of the nation have appreciated, then one becomes locked into one's current domicile.
We just had our house appraised about ten months ago and our current equity is about double the mortgage owed. In 20 years, our home will be long paid off because our mortgage payment is so low that we can double it every month.
We just had our house appraised about ten months ago and our current equity is about double the mortgage owed. In 20 years, our home will be long paid off because our mortgage payment is so low that we can double it every month.
I phrased my statement incoherently. Of course, paying off one's mortgage will build equity, unless the house price completely collapses. This has not happened even in Dayton, except perhaps for some very distressed or otherwise unfortunate handful of properties.
But what I meant was, that there is a powerful financial incentive for owning a house, in the form of market-appreciation. This works for us, in thriving areas, whether or not we originally got a good deal on the house, whether or not it was a lemon, whether or not we maintained it dutifully, whether or not we made silly changes to its decor and so forth. Well, the problem with markets such as the Miami Valley (I do not speak merely of Dayton City) is low (or zero) long term price appreciation. This means that our hypothetical young family, that settled here and bought a house here, will find themselves behind their counterparts, who relocated to a coastal city, when in 20 years the kids are off to college and it's time to downsize.
One can of course invest by other means, say the stock market, which is open to anyone, whether in Dayton or Djibouti. But its awfully nice to effectively be paid for living in a house, with hefty perennial gains from real estate price appreciation. For all of the not insubstantial benefits of living in our region, such price appreciation is not amongst them. This is a consideration for say young professionals, who have good employment options and a choice of region in which to settle. If the Miami Valley is going to aggressively attract more such people, it can of course make progress by revising tax policy, improving schools and so forth. But a more thriving real-estate market would also help.
I phrased my statement incoherently. Of course, paying off one's mortgage will build equity, unless the house price completely collapses. This has not happened even in Dayton, except perhaps for some very distressed or otherwise unfortunate handful of properties.
But what I meant was, that there is a powerful financial incentive for owning a house, in the form of market-appreciation. This works for us, in thriving areas, whether or not we originally got a good deal on the house, whether or not it was a lemon, whether or not we maintained it dutifully, whether or not we made silly changes to its decor and so forth. Well, the problem with markets such as the Miami Valley (I do not speak merely of Dayton City) is low (or zero) long term price appreciation. This means that our hypothetical young family, that settled here and bought a house here, will find themselves behind their counterparts, who relocated to a coastal city, when in 20 years the kids are off to college and it's time to downsize.
One can of course invest by other means, say the stock market, which is open to anyone, whether in Dayton or Djibouti. But its awfully nice to effectively be paid for living in a house, with hefty perennial gains from real estate price appreciation. For all of the not insubstantial benefits of living in our region, such price appreciation is not amongst them. This is a consideration for say young professionals, who have good employment options and a choice of region in which to settle. If the Miami Valley is going to aggressively attract more such people, it can of course make progress by revising tax policy, improving schools and so forth. But a more thriving real-estate market would also help.
A good start to this would be to end the funding of local schools through property tax. Real property is one of the few asset classes that gets taxed simply because it exists. Every other form of tax is only assessed when a gain is actually realized (such as employment, capital gains, etc.)
School tax makes up 60-80% of any house's property tax bill and often amounts to 2-3% of the house's total value annually. It's been ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court four times. What's worse is that it creates a perverse incentive to fight your county tax assessor in order to make the house's value as low as possible, rather than as high as possible (which makes it difficult to accumulate equity).
It's time to end local school levies and institute a statewide income tax to be used by schools, distributed evenly as a function of # of students in the district.
Renters pay no property tax but they often send an outsize number of children to the school district. It's time everyone pays their fair share.
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If you do that, you'll go a LONG way towards allowing real property to appreciate in Ohio.
A good start to this would be to end the funding of local schools through property tax. Real property is one of the few asset classes that gets taxed simply because it exists. Every other form of tax is only assessed when a gain is actually realized (such as employment, capital gains, etc.)
School tax makes up 60-80% of any house's property tax bill and often amounts to 2-3% of the house's total value annually. It's been ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court four times. What's worse is that it creates a perverse incentive to fight your county tax assessor in order to make the house's value as low as possible, rather than as high as possible (which makes it difficult to accumulate equity).
It's time to end local school levies and institute a statewide income tax to be used by schools, distributed evenly as a function of # of students in the district.
Renters pay no property tax but they often send an outsize number of children to the school district. It's time everyone pays their fair share.
***
If you do that, you'll go a LONG way towards allowing real property to appreciate in Ohio.
I agree with you, although I'm sure it's for different reasons. I feel that by tying school funding to property tax, you create a cycle of poverty leads to underfunded schools leads to poverty...
The property tax issue is its own peculiarity. As a transplant to the Midwest, and originally an immigrant to the US, I'm much flustered by the patchwork and parochialism found around the nation, the state of Ohio and the Miami Valley. I understand how parents in Oakwood would rather not have their kids share classrooms with kids from Dayton City, from eminently sensible parental feelings of what's best for their offspring. But it does confound me, that crossing a street bounding the UD campus (in Dayton city) one enters Oakwood, and as it were an entirely different world of education, affluence, community feeling and resources.
It's hard to say whether property tax as a concept is reasonable or confiscatory, rapacious or gentle; or whether we should have a Value Added Tax, or higher taxes on luxuries, or a funding of schools from state or national income tax. I'm honestly not sure. But it does baffle me how so much in American life, be it property values or school quality or the cleanliness of the city water supply, varies so much from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and how the preponderance of opinion in fact extols local control and local governance, regarding state control (and especially national control) as anathema, stupidity and tyranny. Why is this so? Is there an overarching cultural reason, or was it just happenstance?
The property tax issue is its own peculiarity. As a transplant to the Midwest, and originally an immigrant to the US, I'm much flustered by the patchwork and parochialism found around the nation, the state of Ohio and the Miami Valley. I understand how parents in Oakwood would rather not have their kids share classrooms with kids from Dayton City, from eminently sensible parental feelings of what's best for their offspring. But it does confound me, that crossing a street bounding the UD campus (in Dayton city) one enters Oakwood, and as it were an entirely different world of education, affluence, community feeling and resources.
It's hard to say whether property tax as a concept is reasonable or confiscatory, rapacious or gentle; or whether we should have a Value Added Tax, or higher taxes on luxuries, or a funding of schools from state or national income tax. I'm honestly not sure. But it does baffle me how so much in American life, be it property values or school quality or the cleanliness of the city water supply, varies so much from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and how the preponderance of opinion in fact extols local control and local governance, regarding state control (and especially national control) as anathema, stupidity and tyranny. Why is this so? Is there an overarching cultural reason, or was it just happenstance?
As a taxpayer who moved from Dayton-city to a suburb, my reasons for moving are legion - but a huge portion of it stems from the steady stream of **** coming out of Dayton City Hall and its history of incompetence and more incompetence.
While we're on Nan, let's talk about her virtue signalling. Her baldfaced attempt to stumble over Bill de Blasio to let more refugees in despite there already being thousands of homeless and poverty stricken people in Dayton.
I'm the loudest opponent of regional government because it means the morons over at Dayton City Hall would bring this incompetence right into my back pocket again, taking more of my hard earned money. Again. I voted with my feet last year for a reason.
hensley, your decision makes eminent good sense, as assuredly there's no reason to tolerate the pompous intransigence of local abuse of power.
But that begs a deeper question: why does so much power devolve to local authorities? In other words, why aren't the mayor and city council appointed by the state legislature? Why don't cities and townships and counties and so forth merely serve as administrative regions, rather than as their own political entities?
I don't have children, but if I did, it would be comforting if I could move from California to Texas to Ohio to Alabama, and my kids could step into their new school each time, with identical textbooks and syllabus and academic requirements. Maybe I'm callow and naive, and will earn demerit points (if such things existed) for posting this, but it seems to me that absolute national standardization - of schools, vehicle registration, property tax, gun laws, licensing of professionals and so forth - would be a great boon and advantage. But for that of course we'd need a new constitution. Point taken.
hensley, your decision makes eminent good sense, as assuredly there's no reason to tolerate the pompous intransigence of local abuse of power.
But that begs a deeper question: why does so much power devolve to local authorities? In other words, why aren't the mayor and city council appointed by the state legislature? Why don't cities and townships and counties and so forth merely serve as administrative regions, rather than as their own political entities?
I don't have children, but if I did, it would be comforting if I could move from California to Texas to Ohio to Alabama, and my kids could step into their new school each time, with identical textbooks and syllabus and academic requirements. Maybe I'm callow and naive, and will earn demerit points (if such things existed) for posting this, but it seems to me that absolute national standardization - of schools, vehicle registration, property tax, gun laws, licensing of professionals and so forth - would be a great boon and advantage. But for that of course we'd need a new constitution. Point taken.
It's called being free to do what you want to do or even independence. But you need a police department to keep what you want to do from infringing on my rights....
I do have to ask: If Nan is as bad as you claim, then why were her and Niraj Antani(Republican State Rep from Miamisburg) able to work together to end the RTA strike so quickly?
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