article about Austin housing prices (Crockett, Bowie: homes, to buy, new construction)

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

They're different because BOTH THE NUMERATOR AND THE DENOMINATOR ARE DIFFERENT AGGGGHHHHH

And the numerator is the TOTAL BUDGET, ARRGGH. It keeps going up at an unsustainable pace.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

The delta in the tax rate from 2012-2015 for my properties has been 0.0834 points - 8 cents on the dollar - or 3.5% of the total tax burden. So while the rate is moving, it ain't moving much.

Because the taxing entities KEEP RAISING TAXES

When values go up 10%, if the tax rate doesn't go down 10%, it's a tax increase.


If the values hadn't gone up 10%, the taxing entities would just have raised the rate 10%. You think if values had gone down, AISD would have kept the rate the same?

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Of course your bill would still go up. But it wouldn't go up nearly twenty percent in three years.

Of course it would. 8% /year each year for 3 years is >20%.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

I'm a glutton for even bothering with this - you think that some bureaucrat sets the budget and all the other numbers snap into place. To the extent that is true, it is only because they can rely on much more latitude in appraised values than they can in tax rates.

They've got plenty of latitude in tax rates. Literally just as much, for most taxing entities the rollback is based on the total revenue.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

... AGGGGHHHHH

Originally Posted by Novacek

ARRGGH

You guys seem frustrated with each other. You should get together and bake a cake!

[Aquitaine]

If the values hadn't gone up 10%, the taxing entities would just have raised the rate 10%. You think if values had gone down, AISD would have kept the rate the same?

Why ask what if when we can look?

http://www.morrisonandhead.com/uploa...hist_03-13.pdf

Median house price in parens, change in brackets.

2006 - .4126 CoA, 1.4930 AISD ($172,200)
2007 - .4034 CoA, 1.1630 AISD($184,200) [+6.9% median price, -2.2% CoA tax, -28.4% AISD]
2008 - .4012 CoA, 1.2020 AISD ($188,200) [+2.2% median price, -0.5% CoA tax, +3.36% AISD]
2009 - .4209 CoA, 1.2020 AISD ($186,000) [-1.2% median price, +4.9% CoA tax, 0% AISD]
2010 - .4571 CoA, 1.2270 AISD ($189,400) [+1.9% median price, +8.6% CoA tax, +2.1% AISD]
2011 - .4811 CoA, 1.2270 AISD ($190,900) [+0.8% median price, +5.3% CoA, 0% AISD]
2012 - .5029 CoA, 1.2420 AISD ($203,300) [+6.5% median price, 4.5% CoA, +1.2% AISD]

(2015 reference: AISD @ 1.222, CoA @ .4809)

I agree they have latitude but that latitude is not 'set rate to whatever we can get for this budget I just made up.' AISD rates barely move at all after a huge 2007 drop while CoA climbs up to peak in 2012 and gradually decline. Certainly they're playing some catch-up with the market to avoid huge budget swings but the correlation is not even close to your suggestion. They would've peaked in 2009 rather than 2012 if that weren't so.

When values go up 10%, if the tax rate doesn't go down 10%, it's a tax increase.

No, it's an increase in your tax due. If you pay $29,300 of $100,000 in federal income tax, and next year you make $110,000 and pay $32,230, nobody has 'raised taxes' any more than they have raised sales taxes if you buy ten times as many bicycles as last year.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Why ask what if when we can look?

I'm looking.

Where's the instance of a 10% drop in values? The closest it gets is approximately flat values (with new construction probably an actual increase in tax base) and flat taxes.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

I agree they have latitude but that latitude is not 'set rate to whatever we can get for this budget I just made up.'

Actually, for most of the taxing entities that' exactly the latitude they have, both legally and in the court of public opinion (because as that article demonstrated, who in the public is actually looking at the actual tax rates anyway).

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

AISD rates barely move at all after a huge 2007 drop while CoA climbs up to peak in 2012 and gradually decline.

Not that AISD deserves any credit for that "drop", since that was state mandated and made up for by other taxes.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Certainly they're playing some catch-up with the market to avoid huge budget swings but the correlation is not even close to your suggestion. They would've peaked in 2009 rather than 2012 if that weren't so.

Huh? That's my whole point and complaint. The correlation isn't happening because our taxes keep getting raised. Why is (for instance) Austin _raising it's tax rates_ in 2011->2012 even as valuations increase? Because their budget is out of control.




And where are you getting those valuations anyway, where there was basically no drop throughout the recession? Those aren't sale prices are they (you use of the term median price is suspicious)?

[Aquitaine]

Huh? That's my whole point and complaint.

Your point was that property values are a red herring. They seem to be a rather integral piece of the picture, given that they're the only piece that isn't under government control (even if it is under government influence of 'yeah sure this is what we think that's worth', it's responsive to hard data that they have nothing to do with)

Why is (for instance) Austin _raising it's tax rates_ in 2011->2012 even as valuations increase? Because their budget is out of control.

Sure, no argument there.

both legally and in the court of public opinion (because as that article demonstrated, who in the public is actually looking at the actual tax rates anyway).

Because tax rates change more slowly and in smaller (but not necessarily small) absolute terms. .4 to .5 is by no means a small thing, but the appraisal's real-world connection to the increase in market value far outpaces the reduction in the COA tax rate from .5 to .480 or AISD from 1.242 to 1.222 in the last three years. And while the CoA rate does show large swings in response to market changes, AISD between 2 and 3 times that tax burden and it's been holding steady. So:

Rising property values are just a red herring.

...is demonstrably incorrect: rising property values are the shotgun shells being loaded into the city's barrels. No rising values, they've still got the gun and the trigger, but they're loading it with pine cones and scattershot.

And where are you getting those valuations anyway, where there was basically no drop throughout the recession?

The real estate center at (EDIT: Sorry, A&M, not UT...whoops) A&M

Austin MLS Housing Activity, Data -- Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University Home

Once again, since you have a lot of trouble being even slightly wrong, I don't disagree with you that the city has the power to tax within a wide range. But those numbers don't change a lot - your position rests on a ten cent per dollar swing during the recession - a twenty percent change in under thirty percent of the overall rate. The city can be both bound by the market and still outrageously unchecked in setting its budget; those things aren't mutually exclusive.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

The real estate center at (EDIT: Sorry, A&M, not UT...whoops) A&M

Austin MLS Housing Activity, Data -- Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University Home

Those are _completely_ the wrong numbers. Why in the world would you look at MLS numbers? The number we need is the average appraised value (you know, of the other 99% of houses not on the market) or alternatively the total appraised value.

[Aquitaine]

Why in the world would you look at MLS numbers?

http://www.traviscad.org/pdf/Organiz...t_20150226.pdf

Go have a look at average appraised values. It's the same trend, just with 1-2 year delays as TCAD plays catch-up to the market. Doesn't change the fact that AISD tax rates didn't move and CoA rates are within a ten cent band.

You're advertising your ostrich approach to the problem here by dismissing MLS numbers, but I guess you gotta break out the underscore somewhere. Both sets - MLS and appraised - have to be connected, somewhere, to the real world. MLS numbers are directly connected; appraised has to follow along every Spring. Comps are what you break out to protest your appraised value. All 'appraised value' is is the county's guess at where you would be if you were on the MLS. They are restrained by the real world market. Not completely restrained, of course, but 'values down 10%, tax rate up 10%' is nonsense.

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

Salaries can't keep pace with Austin housing boom

I realize much of this is talked to death on the forum but here we go again: For those of you experiencing the issue of low salaries or working in the field of real estate...is that article accurate? (Your opinion)

I recall looking for a house six years ago now around Austin and nothing seemed to fit. Although had I been into renovating perhaps we would have found a place. Still, I just couldn't see paying what the asking prices were even six years ago. What seems to be interesting to me is how people come in with offers for homes ABOVE the asking price. That seems bizarre to me...only because I've never seen it before except on "Property Brothers". (hooked on the show for the time being)

What is driving people to the cities again? I can recall a time when cities were the last place people wanted to be and were dead as a doornail on the weekends. (some cities, I'm not saying all)

Can anyone reference any recent studies regarding the flight back into the cities?

People are moving back to cities because long commutes waste your life away. Yards do the same. Why waste money on either if you can live close to work?

[scm53]

Originally Posted by AuburnAL

People are moving back to cities because long commutes waste your life away. Yards do the same. Why waste money on either if you can live close to work?

Urban living is attractive to singles and childless couples. It is a niche product, with a limited appeal. And a hype that far surpasses the actual numbers.

[homeinatx]

Originally Posted by scm53

Urban living is attractive to singles and childless couples. It is a niche product, with a limited appeal. And a hype that far surpasses the actual numbers.

Everything is a niche product. There is no one size fits all over a life span. My building downtown Austin is close to half empty nesters who moved downtown as soon as their children left the suburban home. I hate traffic. I hate driving. If your version of the good life requires a three car garage and homogenous "good" schools, stay stuck in traffic for two hours a day. It is not a zero sum game, but millions of people all over the world from Paris to Singapore successfully raise children in dense urban environments.

Austin is a middling city in the hillocks of Central Texas struggling to decide what kind of city to be. Urban living comes with a price, so does suburban living. All great cities offer both. Right now, Austin offers more suburban options. I'd like to see more of a balance, though it is going to be tricky, because there is so little defining historic built environment, almost all in the core, so I would not want sacrifice that to increased density.

Personally, I think suburbanites should be forced to pay more than they currently are for what are to me bad aesthetic, environmental and political choices. I imagine they could say the same about me. The market regrettably will decide much of what happens, but I think the limited power of the city should be used for paradoxically both very aggressive historic preservation practices AND the elimination of SFH zoning in the core: increase housing supply in the core as much as possible with minimal damage to the aesthetics and modes of life in the city.

What do you think should happen in the suburbs? Do you want Austin to become a dispersed multi nodal city like DFW (Austin currently has and has had for most of its history one of the highest percentage of all jobs in its core of any city in the U.S. - a singular feature of the city)? Most of the growth of the MSA has been suburban. Do you think that is a good thing. We are not going back to to 1975 or whenever. How should the city grow, because it is growing?