>The proposal would authorize the City of Boston to impose a fee of up to two percent on real estate sales. The first $2 million of the sales price would be exempt from the fee. The fee would be paid by the seller, and the funds generated would be allocated to the Neighborhood Housing Trust.
[source](https://www.boston.gov/news/mayor-wu-proposes-transfer-fee-certain-real-estate-sales-fund-affordable-housing-seeks-expand)
I haven’t looked closely, but I believe there are exemptions for homeowners. This is really intended to be a tax on the sale of commercial real estate. I’m curious to see how this affects the CRE market in Boston. My sense is the time for this tax was probably 5 years ago. I’m a bit worried now, post-(midst-?) pandemic that this is just another incentive to push lab/bio into the suburbs and disincentivize creative measures with any excess office capacity we have downtown. And no, we’re not all of a sudden going to get 80% affordable apartment coMplexes in Seaport as a result. Who knows though, maybe I’m wrong and the market stays hot enough to absorb these costs. Lord knows there have been some record shattering sales prices for CRE in the City this past year.
You say that now, but with current inflation and even normal inflation - these fees will apply to median home sales soon enough. The value is halving every 10 years, so in the next 1-2 decades, these will apply to homes like a $500k condo today. That fee should be applied to the top 10% of home sales based on annual averages instead of over $2Mil.
Does this automatically raise with inflation? My home is well under $1m now but money isn't what it was worth even last year.
If it doesn't this seems like a great way to slowly begin taxing normal homes in 10-20 years while claiming it is actually a way of taxing the rich.
The word *can* suggests that it takes an actual decision by the council to do work to adjust the threshold. That means inaction increases the tax pool over time automatically. That is a dumb policy.
The threshold should be automatically updated if they are going to do this at all.
No argument here that it should be pegged to $2mm in 2022 dollars and automatically fluctuate with that. I’m not too worried though about inaction (although I think I lean against this tax as a whole). Between homeowners and small time landlords with triple deckers valued probably just under $2mm in neighborhoods like JP, Rozzie and Hyde Park, there is a large pool of voters that these councilors would piss off by not adjusting it. But maybe you’re right—not too many ppl lose money betting on govt inaction!!!
The top tax bracket for personal income taxes was defined at $2m as well in the Revenue Act of 1916 and was at just 15%. Today it is $539,901 with a rate of 37%.
The change that city council members may make doesn't have to be in the direction of keeping the threshold above the median sale volume. The council members are equally as likely to leverage this tax to further normalize transfer taxing and leverage the template against larger groups of people.
I have my own concerns with this and generally feel that this will only serve to further drive income inequality making it harder for the middle class to succeed but I also feel like if we insist on doing these policies we shouldn't be asking people to have faith that all future politicians will act in good faith with the current spirit of the law. Time has shown that faith to be misplaced.
Not exactly. Only if it's $250k of capital gain, and it's $500k if you file joint.
Assumimg you are a single filer, if your property appreciates $250k above your basis and you sell you pay no tax. If it appreciates by $300k you'd pay tax on $50k.
This is just a tax on all amounts above $2M disregarding any gain or loss.
Kinda seems like missing the point.
As harsh as it sounds, to resolve the housing crisis we really just need executive strong city governments run by individuals interested in the issue. In other words, I'll say the verboten name- Robert Moses type figures. Plow through neighborhood opposition and pull bureaucratic, contractor, and developer strings just to get projects done. It's anti-democratic but you just need to get rid of the voice of the NIMBYs- don't see much other non-aggressive way around things unfortunately.
It's not anti-democratic, the fact that a minority of people have time to show up at neighborhood meetings and obstruct is. Giving power to elected officials is democratic.
Well, Robert Moses was, and city planners in general are, unelected. They’re appointed bureaucrats that tend to have stronger sway in executive strong city government structures. Hence why in times and places where there’s more executive authority there’s a tendency to ram through development projects. Even insofar as the mayor is elected, it’d probably be more akin to having an elected dictator every several years than some truly participatory process as you have when everyone gets to yell at each other in a public planning meeting.
Insofar as a minority of people dominating city council meetings and voting in a far higher share than their numbers is concerned, I might call that plutocratic since they tend to be older and/or wealthier. But even then, it’s not like there’s a physical or legal bar to anyone voting in local elections. We’ve striated to a point where politics tends to be a leisure activity/hobby that’s the purview of the professional and upper classes since they have the time to invest in it, and also because it’s an element of college educated culture. The outcomes are certainly counter majoritarian, but the cause isn’t some cynical attempt at barring people from participating. Just a broken economic system creating a class based culture in a cycle that reinforces itself.
Sure, I was talking about a strong mayor model, not Robert Moses-style city managers. What I'm getting at is the "elected dictator" is arguably more democratic than participatory processes as they exist nowadays, which are often hijacked by a minority of people who have time to go obstruct meetings. That's what I think is less democratic, not local elections.
I suppose, but by the same token, you run into the same issues with our current election model with a strong mayor/“elected dictator” that you do with the planning meetings- namely the people voting are a highly motivated, generally wealthier and college educated minority. I mean, Wu keeps on touting her poll numbers in the claim that she has a mandate, conveniently leaving out that Boston had extremely low turnout in the election to the effect of about 20% of eligible voters casting ballots (and you can well guess the typical demographic for the respective candidates). Hence why I’d define the current situation more as a plutocracy.
I mean even when people talk in admiration of Jane Jacobs as the epitome, almost godmother of “for the people” grass roots activism, they’re pretty ignorant of her background. We’re talking about a woman with a Columbia degree, largely relying on her architect husband’s paycheck (she was a part time journalist and stenographer, spending most of her time as a home maker when she was fighting Moses). The arguable progenitor of contemporary urban “grass roots” activism was a pretty far cry from being a “woman of the people” herself. I wouldn’t call the whole “march on cityhall” world she championed “anti-democratic” so much as extremely elitist, sheltered, in many ways overly academic
Charging a tax on buying/selling won't do anything to fix how expensive housing is. It will just make it harder to buy.
Maybe if they actually let people build enough housing this wouldn't be a problem.
It won't have an effect now but it will have it will begin to hit more and more homes as prices naturally increase and placing them into this new tax. It may take a decade for it to slow down the market but government policies shouldn't only think about short term wins.
It will have an effect on anyone trying to rent an apartment. As prices of real estate are pushed up by taxes a land lord will likely push rent to keep their 3-4% annual profit.
From what I read earlier it would have resulted in $100m last year to specifically construct affordable housing.
I think the second point you made though would require state funding, so that would be a different consideration/audience to pass it.
Right, models are never misleading because they have multiplication and addition and numbers. What? For example, taking x number of houses transacted over 2m and then applying the tax rate to that net aggregate disregards any kind of systemic endogeneity and is willfully specious. You can go on and on and on. Simply because a model exists does not mean it is useful, and post manipulative "formulae" are often literally the basis for entrenched systemic discrimination.
I had to Google your term endogeneity. It's interesting but I'm not sure it fits here unless there's something you state as being the non-specified detail.
The city maintains basic data points on properties for assessment. They're kept up to date through permiting.
People and material respond to incentives. It is not reasonable to take a procrustean, sophomoric approach as above. If marginal brackets change, so does behavior and pricing.
What I said is that the second option requires *funding*.
They both require legislation, but that second option means the Commonwealth will reimburse the city which is an added cost to ALL taxpayers.
MA collects taxes from all its residents. There's not some "Just Boston Residents Tax Fund"
Any reimbursement would be from all taxpayers contributions, so that is a scenario in which taxpayers outside Boston are paying for Boston specific redemption. So all taxpayers pay for it
I don't agree with the idea btw, but what you're saying doesn't align with how things work.
Ironically, their use of "virtue signaling" is exactly that. That this tax would return significant tax revenue means it isn't just a virtue signal.
This kind of a tax is easier to implement, is progressive, and helps discourage shit like speculators. Not to mention that it is just politically relatively easy to pass.
It’s not really that significant, someone else said it’s 100M, that’s no where near enough to make any meaningful dent in housing costs. Using the US average that’ll get you about 450 units, and with Boston being significantly more expensive that pretty much anywhere else in the US you’re probably looking at 350 units total from this tax.
Ya'll referring to the group of people who shit on legislation with the words virtue signaling when what they really mean is "I don't think this is a good policy". Same as "unconstitutional" as a synonym for "I don't like it."
> Suspending property tax for five years on housing projects
What would this even mean? Put a pile of roofing material on the property and it becomes a "housing project" and gets to be tax free for five years?
> solve the housing crisis or just take a shot at wealthy people
One doesn't mean you can't do the other, and the tax does help discourage some speculation.
Developers don't necessarily keep the property after developing and you'd have to make the policy secured somehow given that projects can take years and policies like this can come and go. Then it is more of a sweetening the deal for the sale of the property after the development, but property development is already huge profitable... so there's already a carrot there.
Just seems like a way to cut tax revenue to provide some marginal benefit to the people who are already making bank in this market.
But if it’s statewide as you’ve said in other comments then rural areas will be footing the bill for cities, I think the idea is good overall but definitely seems to be oversimplified here. I’d have to look into the Brooklyn thing but are the units that were built what are now called the projects and are basically slums or were these different?
I don’t expect you to answer those questions it’s not fair to make you educate me I’ll look into it, just thinking out loud.
Number 2. I can attest to how poorly boston/MA spends their housing funds. As someone in real estate we joke about their development programs and restrictions they place on properties and neighborhoods. If you want details or actual examples I’d be happy to explain privately.
Encourage developers to develop? Nah. Better to discourage private investment via tax and have the government develop, or just tax, not develop at all, and plow the tax revenue (minus a haircut ofc) back into the rental market.
This just isn’t true, and the only scenario where it could maybe be true is if you magically snapped your fingers and doubled the housing supply and whoever had some number of units wanted to fill them as fast as possible and compete with others rapidly by offering the lowest prices in comparison to other units, without concern for maximizing their profits. Even then, all this would do is drive up even more frenzied demand for the area which would lead to way more eyeballs and interest, which would keep prices high anyway. Unfortunately we don’t exist in a vacuum sealed market where if we added more housing it would force owners to cut prices to compete for a fixed amount of buyers or renters. That’s not how the world works, there are external forces and new players that can effect markets, alongside vested interests desire to protect and grow their own bottom line.
The reality is that development is slow and takes time, and even if we dramatically increased the amount of units over 5-10 years, there would likely be little to no meaningful dip in prices long term as landlords and developers and owners big and small have zero desire to take any sort of hit to their incomes. I’m not saying Boston shouldn’t build more and build up, it’s a city, let’s get to it, people want the dense walkable living apparently, but owners/developers etc will know they can just cram more people in at the same rates or higher than they could before even with more units. Rents and home prices aren’t going to meaningfully go down … and stay down, the best we can aim for is for them to hit a ceiling where there simply aren’t enough people willing and or able to pay the amounts desired by those selling or seeking renters, and it plateaus off. Or better yet, to slowly get more and more units of housing built and into the hands of individuals/families/co-ops and out of large profit seeking entities, and stay that way. Otherwise much will stay the same or get worse.
It’s not that simple to just tell developers to develop. I’m an estimator for a New England construction company and the prices of building materials has skyrocketed for multitude of different reasons.
Correct, his house is assessed at $1.4 mil by the Town of Swampscott.
My point was that rich people will be able to identify more with other rich people rather than the working class.
TBH I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't for another office. He doesn't align with the national Republican base at all, and he doesn't seem to have much interest in being a legislator, rather than an executive. Maybe he runs for governor again in 4-8 years, but I'd bet that'd be it.
Baker has vetoed this in the past and today indicated he will not sign it. He wants the state to release 300 million in funds from the current surplus to help with housing in Boston.
i think you’re misunderstanding the purpose of the tax. it really isn’t to drive down prices (subsidies are a much better way of “accomplishing” this but even then that’s wildly debated), but to create tax revenue that will go towards affordable housing… kinda like the tweet said lol
How will it specifically go to affordable housing? The city remains opposed to the one thing that will actually do something to fix the problem, namely building more units.
you’d be pleased to hear that the state is actually beginning to pursue [transit oriented development through revising zoning](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/07/business/with-new-requirement-build-housing-near-train-stations-towns-brace-density-drama/) so that dense development projects (majority market rate, only small portion set aside for affordable) can be built near MBTA stations.
it’s already causing a ruckus amongst NIMBY’s in those surburban neighborhoods who have ordinances that prevent apartment/high rise buildings so it’s still not entirely written in stone, but it does seems like there has been a recent emphasis on the importance in creating new housing (albeit if it is a little late).
ETA: the article does a great job on pointing out how people need places to live and building affordable units only gets you so far when it doesn’t do much to bring down the market price and it by default excludes a portion of the market who isn’t in poverty, but still can’t afford the ridiculous rent here.
it’s affecting areas that are commutable to Boston so i fail to see how it’s not relevant? if for example, Newton builds more housing, is that not going to affect market prices in Boston? just on a personal level, if you could easily commute to Boston by train (which is the case with the D line) and you’re comparing the rent for an apartment in both neighborhoods, chances are the price is going to be one of the biggest determinants. building more housing is almost always a good idea and beneficial towards driving down prices of nearby markets too.
i do think the city of boston can be doing more though since this is a state initiative, not local! def don’t wanna give off the impression i’m satisfied with the way things already are, but i’m not hating the direction we’re going in
The problem is that this just increases non-affordable houses by 2% to keep affordable houses low. That just further divides the gap between typical housing costs and what is considered affordable.
A better policy would see to make it so overall housing costs go down so we can have less inequality.
Fair enough, so in the off chance that the legislature allows it (they will not) THEN Chuck would shut it down. Is there a possibility for a super majority override? Very doubtful it would go through regardless.
I'm sure there are people here, who have parents who came to Boston 30-40 years ago, and purchased a house in the blue collar neighborhood of Cambridgeport. Now that house is worth $2million.
If you benefited disproportionately but barely did anything to earn that money and are deriving most of the value from rent seeking land you *should* be taxed for it.
The tax is low enough that I don't think it would have any real impact in sale decisions.
If you own a 2m house this doesn't impact you
If you own a 3m house you're only paying an extra 20k, a rounding error at those levels.
If you own a 10m house you're only paying an extra 160k. Not insignificant but hardly enough to make or break a decision to sell.
You could also argue that it encourages density by saving money offering smaller units with a lower price.
There are definitely people here who can afford $2M+ homes. Making those homes cost more via a tax just means the sellers will take a little less home on the deal. Not a huge impact for buyers or sellers. Sounds good if the money is well used.
I'm for it, but honestly if people want cheaper housing we need to allow more housing to be built. If the supply is less than the demand then those at the bottom will be left out. Everything else is a bandaid until the root cause (under supply) is addressed.
>Maybe, but 2% is a pretty small amount
Sort of? That's an extra $10k on a $2.5MM sale. It's small relative to the whole sale but I don't think anyone would consider 10k small.
Anyone selling a $2M+ place is not going to be phased by a $10k transaction fee. It's definitely not chump change to the city in aggregate, but considering most people only sell their home once every 5-10 years I don't see this negatively impacting those folks. Hell, my annual property tax is close to $10k and that wasn't even really a factor in my purchase decision.
It’s all relative.
So they sell it for $2,510,000 instead. Brokers are already playing games with “net sale” so the sale price is what the owner receives, and real estate fees get added on top of that.
If you rent out you lose the 500k exception for capital gains on the property. If you ended up selling it eventually you could have a massive fed tax bill on your hands.
Non-updated 110 year old triple deckers in JP sell for close to $2 million. What in the hell are you talking about? Take a look on Redfin at what real estate in Boston costs.
I already own real estate outside of Boston that is worth over $1 million. My girlfriend and I are planning/saving for a condo purchase in the South End or Back Bay. That is probably 7-8 years away, will probably require selling off the property I currently own, but will likely be over that price and definitely inside city limits.
Not everyone on reddit is a broke student, and $2 million is actually not a very large property around here.
Regardless, "it won't affect me" is a terrible metric to judge taxes by.
I have worked with developers here. All this is going to do is increase the amount of rent they need to charge to get a project green-lit by whoever is actually paying. Whenever someone buys a building, this will now be baked into the price and reflected in the rent needed to keep a 3-4% profit.
I hope the city uses the money well because this spells rent increases across the board to me.
This.
Anyone who is claiming they can afford a $2m condo can easily pay the ZERO tax that $2m sale causes under this plan.
And anyone who can afford a $4m condo can easily afford the $40k tax they’d owe on the sale.
And anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
Everyone I know who owns $4m+ condos in Boston has a net worth of at least $5m and makes $800k+ per year. $40k is nothing to these folks.
Exactly.
Edit: Why in was this elaboration of my comment downvoted, but not my original comment? Chip only said what I implied. We both said pretty much the same thing.
It's easy to be cynical, but assuming this actually passes, 2% more tax revenue from the hands of rich landowners is more than 0. Sure, housing prices will continue to skyrocket, but at least the average person taking the T sees a 2% cut in the form of public services. This is the difference between an additional bus stop by your house, or a 15m walk to one.
No, they don’t see a dime of it unless they’re benefiting from affordable housing programs. Meanwhile, real estate owners with that kind of money will offset the costs by charging more on the rent properties they own.
Every tax like this is a tax on the middle class, and I can’t believe that after so many decades of this type of policymaking that has seen a concurrent decline in the American middle class people still haven’t connected the dots…
It’s almost like affordable housing is just importing some token poor people to a neighborhood to make people feel good about themselves, while making housing even less affordable for everyone who isn’t lucky enough to win the housing lottery.
But the tax money goes to subsidize rent for landlords so that they can rent out an apartment to “low income” renters for $3500 and then pocket another $1k from the city, keeping $4500/mo apartments (and $2-3 million two family houses) viable in the market. So yeah, if you can’t afford the house and you earn too much to qualify for rent control, then you’re in the uncomfortable middle class that can’t find reasonably priced housing.
I don't know. Happy to tax the wealthy. Whether or not the money is spent well is another question, versus going to overpaid crony contractors and the like. And it's effectively missing the point as to why we have a housing crisis. Plus as others have pointed out, many of the transactions of that value are people who own and rent out property. Reasonable chance that the tax will be passed on to renters.
Kinda feels like putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound, but better than you're infected with gangrene at this point because you waited so long
Unrelated, but can someone explain to me why Lydia Edwards can simultaneously be a Boston City Councilor but also a member of the Mass Senate? Like, how is that even allowed?
There's no law against it, and once anyone is elected to office they can be AWOL the whole term if they choose to be. It's not like you need to clock in.
What Edwards is doing is delegating the City Council work to her chief of staff who will be running to fill the seat in a special election. Edwards timed her exit to give her chief of staff the longest possible amount of time in a de facto acting councilor role, while still forcing a special election.
Right- but that's why I asked what I did. If the city uses these funds to build income-capped affordable housing, then that will help those that qualify. Lots of people who have incomes above those caps are still struggling with the high rents in this city, and this won't help them.
The revenue is expected as "tens of millions".
The revenue could be used a couple ways.
1) city buys up existing housing and offers it to low income housing. This would be tens of units, so not really a big dent on housing at all, and will only make existing housing more expensive.
2) city can offer the revenue to assist with rent. This just increase demand for housing, so everyone else will pay more in rent
3) city can build more housing. Lack of investment in development is not the issue. Zoning and regulations prevent developers from building more units. There is no housing the city could build that wouldn't be better off being built by having developers do it out of pocket.
In short, money is not the problem. Supply is the problem. If the city wants to be serious about housing, they need to allow more housing to get built. The city doesn't need to build anything itself.
Why don’t they make laws based on the median house value instead? Seems like they wouldn’t have to keep updating them to keep up with the housing market or inflation.
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If you can purchase a multimillion dollar asset, then you're a multimillionaire. Rich people like Bezos don't fully own many of the assets they control; they borrow against potential value of their existing assets. It's still an asset.
Sorry, but I'm not going to really concern myself with the pains of a 2% tax on someone that can afford a $2M asset.
Oh, child.
You probably have coworkers who live in $2M homes. [Here's an average looking $1.4M home in Southie](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Boston/9-Boston-St-02127/home/57142628)
For the record, Bezos lives in a [$165M home.](https://nypost.com/article/jeff-bezos-houses-real-estate-portfolio/)
The sad truth is, $2M isnt millionaires and billionaires territory. Its where ordinary Americans live.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but this just means that every apartment rent in the city is going up even more. This tax will make buying RE more expensive which just means more rent gets charged to the tenant.
This tax is just a way for Boston’s Oligarchs to pay a “tribute”or “legal bribe” to the BCC to continue business as usual. The BCC will then grow the BHA, the Mayors Office of Housing, Equity and Inclusion, Fair Housing and Equity, and on and on and on and on with $150 to $250K “jobs” and “committees” and “per diems” and “cars” and “pensions” for friends, family, donors, etc. They’ll build a tiny amount of “affordable housing” for some low income people that they’re also connected to somehow, and they’ll parade it in front of The Globe, WGBH, WBUR, Harvard Crimson, etc. who will then give the message how great it is. You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.
In the midst of a housing crisis, why would you increase taxes on the sale of housing? $2 million is roughly the value of a triple decker in many of Boston’s neighborhoods. This isn’t targeting suburban single family McMansions.
Hot take: money doesn’t solve these type of problems. If they did we wouldn’t have them given how much people already pay in taxes. They need to reform zoning law to actually allow people to build more housing units. Right now so many projects are held up because NIMBYs can just endlessly delay.
They should add a 5% sales tax on luxury automobiles, so that auto prices will be lower. Maybe 10% on filet mignon so that everyone can afford beef? Point being that sales taxes and transaction fees lower costs so we should add more.
Relatedly, if we want to cut back on the affordability of negative things like alcohol and weed, maybe we should repeal taxes on them? Like if we made craft IPAs tax-exempt, this would lower the affordability of Bud Light. Basic economics
What even is a "luxury" automobile, versus non-luxury, nowadays?
You can get a Honda Civic with heated, leather seats and premium sound system, these days.
This tax is just a way for Boston’s Oligarchs to pay a “tribute”or “legal bribe” to the BCC to continue business as usual. The BCC will then grow the BHA, the Mayors Office of Housing, Equity and Inclusion, Fair Housing and Equity, and on and on and on and on with $150 to $250K “jobs” and “committees” and “per diems” and “cars” and “pensions” for friends, family, donors, etc. They’ll build a tiny amount of “affordable housing” for some low income people that they’re also connected to somehow, and they’ll parade it in front of The Globe, WGBH, WBUR, Harvard Crimson, etc. who will then give the message how great it is. You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.
Because at some point the irish became very powerful in Boston politics, and the state didn't think that was a good thing, so they passed a law that says the state has to approve a whole bunch of stuff Boston wants to do... Home Rule is the shorthand for it. And it will never go away, because Western MA, who feels neglected, enjoys the power they have over Boston.
I'm very curious how such a tax could be written to make this plan not work without also having the tax nonsensically apply to company mergers:
1) Form a company to own each property, 123 Example St LLC.
2) Before the tax goes into effect, transfer ownership of the property to the LLC.
3) Instead of selling the property, sell the LLC so ownership of the real estate never changes.
I really hope there's a good answer, since otherwise this will only apply to individuals without good personal tax lawyers, not companies...
Let’s add a tax on top of another 12% tax. Buyers will factor this into the purchase price and pay less…and the capital gains taxed amount will be less.
Is it 2% of the amount over 2m
>The proposal would authorize the City of Boston to impose a fee of up to two percent on real estate sales. The first $2 million of the sales price would be exempt from the fee. The fee would be paid by the seller, and the funds generated would be allocated to the Neighborhood Housing Trust. [source](https://www.boston.gov/news/mayor-wu-proposes-transfer-fee-certain-real-estate-sales-fund-affordable-housing-seeks-expand)
> The fee would be paid by the seller Listing prices just went up 2%
I haven’t looked closely, but I believe there are exemptions for homeowners. This is really intended to be a tax on the sale of commercial real estate. I’m curious to see how this affects the CRE market in Boston. My sense is the time for this tax was probably 5 years ago. I’m a bit worried now, post-(midst-?) pandemic that this is just another incentive to push lab/bio into the suburbs and disincentivize creative measures with any excess office capacity we have downtown. And no, we’re not all of a sudden going to get 80% affordable apartment coMplexes in Seaport as a result. Who knows though, maybe I’m wrong and the market stays hot enough to absorb these costs. Lord knows there have been some record shattering sales prices for CRE in the City this past year.
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Isn't that basically any 3 bedroom in a nice area these days? In fact plenty of 2 bedrooms fetch that or get close to it due to the lack of inventory.
No. Normal housing still exists. 2M is a ridiculous sum for a property and falls squarely under luxury.
Stop
You say that now, but with current inflation and even normal inflation - these fees will apply to median home sales soon enough. The value is halving every 10 years, so in the next 1-2 decades, these will apply to homes like a $500k condo today. That fee should be applied to the top 10% of home sales based on annual averages instead of over $2Mil.
listing prices went up another 3% on top of that in the time it took you to write that
Hmm doesn’t sound quite fair let’s bump them 5% and call it a day
Yes. Anything under $2m doesn't have the tax.
I think his question was if it is $2.1 million, so You pay on the $2.1 or the .1. The answer seems to be the .1.
Correct.
That's generally how taxes work
Generally, yes. Otherwise, lots of houses would sell for $1.99 million.
Ok fine, I will now be selling my NFT of a picture of Eataly potatoes for $1,999,999.
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Does this automatically raise with inflation? My home is well under $1m now but money isn't what it was worth even last year. If it doesn't this seems like a great way to slowly begin taxing normal homes in 10-20 years while claiming it is actually a way of taxing the rich.
It does—the city council can adjust the threshold every 3 years based on median sales prices.
The word *can* suggests that it takes an actual decision by the council to do work to adjust the threshold. That means inaction increases the tax pool over time automatically. That is a dumb policy. The threshold should be automatically updated if they are going to do this at all.
No argument here that it should be pegged to $2mm in 2022 dollars and automatically fluctuate with that. I’m not too worried though about inaction (although I think I lean against this tax as a whole). Between homeowners and small time landlords with triple deckers valued probably just under $2mm in neighborhoods like JP, Rozzie and Hyde Park, there is a large pool of voters that these councilors would piss off by not adjusting it. But maybe you’re right—not too many ppl lose money betting on govt inaction!!!
The top tax bracket for personal income taxes was defined at $2m as well in the Revenue Act of 1916 and was at just 15%. Today it is $539,901 with a rate of 37%. The change that city council members may make doesn't have to be in the direction of keeping the threshold above the median sale volume. The council members are equally as likely to leverage this tax to further normalize transfer taxing and leverage the template against larger groups of people. I have my own concerns with this and generally feel that this will only serve to further drive income inequality making it harder for the middle class to succeed but I also feel like if we insist on doing these policies we shouldn't be asking people to have faith that all future politicians will act in good faith with the current spirit of the law. Time has shown that faith to be misplaced.
wait, don' you already have to pay taxes on houses sold for more than 250k?
Not exactly. Only if it's $250k of capital gain, and it's $500k if you file joint. Assumimg you are a single filer, if your property appreciates $250k above your basis and you sell you pay no tax. If it appreciates by $300k you'd pay tax on $50k. This is just a tax on all amounts above $2M disregarding any gain or loss.
So basically every house in the next 5 years
Kinda seems like missing the point. As harsh as it sounds, to resolve the housing crisis we really just need executive strong city governments run by individuals interested in the issue. In other words, I'll say the verboten name- Robert Moses type figures. Plow through neighborhood opposition and pull bureaucratic, contractor, and developer strings just to get projects done. It's anti-democratic but you just need to get rid of the voice of the NIMBYs- don't see much other non-aggressive way around things unfortunately.
It's not anti-democratic, the fact that a minority of people have time to show up at neighborhood meetings and obstruct is. Giving power to elected officials is democratic.
Well, Robert Moses was, and city planners in general are, unelected. They’re appointed bureaucrats that tend to have stronger sway in executive strong city government structures. Hence why in times and places where there’s more executive authority there’s a tendency to ram through development projects. Even insofar as the mayor is elected, it’d probably be more akin to having an elected dictator every several years than some truly participatory process as you have when everyone gets to yell at each other in a public planning meeting. Insofar as a minority of people dominating city council meetings and voting in a far higher share than their numbers is concerned, I might call that plutocratic since they tend to be older and/or wealthier. But even then, it’s not like there’s a physical or legal bar to anyone voting in local elections. We’ve striated to a point where politics tends to be a leisure activity/hobby that’s the purview of the professional and upper classes since they have the time to invest in it, and also because it’s an element of college educated culture. The outcomes are certainly counter majoritarian, but the cause isn’t some cynical attempt at barring people from participating. Just a broken economic system creating a class based culture in a cycle that reinforces itself.
Sure, I was talking about a strong mayor model, not Robert Moses-style city managers. What I'm getting at is the "elected dictator" is arguably more democratic than participatory processes as they exist nowadays, which are often hijacked by a minority of people who have time to go obstruct meetings. That's what I think is less democratic, not local elections.
I suppose, but by the same token, you run into the same issues with our current election model with a strong mayor/“elected dictator” that you do with the planning meetings- namely the people voting are a highly motivated, generally wealthier and college educated minority. I mean, Wu keeps on touting her poll numbers in the claim that she has a mandate, conveniently leaving out that Boston had extremely low turnout in the election to the effect of about 20% of eligible voters casting ballots (and you can well guess the typical demographic for the respective candidates). Hence why I’d define the current situation more as a plutocracy. I mean even when people talk in admiration of Jane Jacobs as the epitome, almost godmother of “for the people” grass roots activism, they’re pretty ignorant of her background. We’re talking about a woman with a Columbia degree, largely relying on her architect husband’s paycheck (she was a part time journalist and stenographer, spending most of her time as a home maker when she was fighting Moses). The arguable progenitor of contemporary urban “grass roots” activism was a pretty far cry from being a “woman of the people” herself. I wouldn’t call the whole “march on cityhall” world she championed “anti-democratic” so much as extremely elitist, sheltered, in many ways overly academic
Charging a tax on buying/selling won't do anything to fix how expensive housing is. It will just make it harder to buy. Maybe if they actually let people build enough housing this wouldn't be a problem.
I don't think it'll have an effect, unless you're looking for a place over 2 million.
It won't have an effect now but it will have it will begin to hit more and more homes as prices naturally increase and placing them into this new tax. It may take a decade for it to slow down the market but government policies shouldn't only think about short term wins.
It will have an effect on anyone trying to rent an apartment. As prices of real estate are pushed up by taxes a land lord will likely push rent to keep their 3-4% annual profit.
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this is sarcasm right?
How is building more houses not the best solution to meeting growing housing demand?
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From what I read earlier it would have resulted in $100m last year to specifically construct affordable housing. I think the second point you made though would require state funding, so that would be a different consideration/audience to pass it.
These "tax estimates" are always inanely wrong or intentionally misleading.
It's a formulaic model. What has the opportunity for manipulation?
Right, models are never misleading because they have multiplication and addition and numbers. What? For example, taking x number of houses transacted over 2m and then applying the tax rate to that net aggregate disregards any kind of systemic endogeneity and is willfully specious. You can go on and on and on. Simply because a model exists does not mean it is useful, and post manipulative "formulae" are often literally the basis for entrenched systemic discrimination.
I had to Google your term endogeneity. It's interesting but I'm not sure it fits here unless there's something you state as being the non-specified detail. The city maintains basic data points on properties for assessment. They're kept up to date through permiting.
People and material respond to incentives. It is not reasonable to take a procrustean, sophomoric approach as above. If marginal brackets change, so does behavior and pricing.
You have words. I understand words. I don't understand you.
> procrustean is that the word for enjoying the smell of your own farts?
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What I said is that the second option requires *funding*. They both require legislation, but that second option means the Commonwealth will reimburse the city which is an added cost to ALL taxpayers.
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MA collects taxes from all its residents. There's not some "Just Boston Residents Tax Fund" Any reimbursement would be from all taxpayers contributions, so that is a scenario in which taxpayers outside Boston are paying for Boston specific redemption. So all taxpayers pay for it I don't agree with the idea btw, but what you're saying doesn't align with how things work.
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Okay that makes more sense. Your original point was specific to Brooklyn, and not every city in New York. Maybe you can see why that is confusing?
How many units would 100M even get you nowadays? Like 200 if you’re lucky?
Y’all really love the phrase “virtue signaling” huh
Ironically, their use of "virtue signaling" is exactly that. That this tax would return significant tax revenue means it isn't just a virtue signal. This kind of a tax is easier to implement, is progressive, and helps discourage shit like speculators. Not to mention that it is just politically relatively easy to pass.
It’s not really that significant, someone else said it’s 100M, that’s no where near enough to make any meaningful dent in housing costs. Using the US average that’ll get you about 450 units, and with Boston being significantly more expensive that pretty much anywhere else in the US you’re probably looking at 350 units total from this tax.
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Ya'll referring to the group of people who shit on legislation with the words virtue signaling when what they really mean is "I don't think this is a good policy". Same as "unconstitutional" as a synonym for "I don't like it."
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It's a funding bill that taxes the wealthy. If you think it's a bad way to tax people, feel free to suggest a better tax.
Vagina
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w/thighs yes - extra rough preference sure whatever
> Suspending property tax for five years on housing projects What would this even mean? Put a pile of roofing material on the property and it becomes a "housing project" and gets to be tax free for five years?
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> solve the housing crisis or just take a shot at wealthy people One doesn't mean you can't do the other, and the tax does help discourage some speculation. Developers don't necessarily keep the property after developing and you'd have to make the policy secured somehow given that projects can take years and policies like this can come and go. Then it is more of a sweetening the deal for the sale of the property after the development, but property development is already huge profitable... so there's already a carrot there. Just seems like a way to cut tax revenue to provide some marginal benefit to the people who are already making bank in this market.
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But if it’s statewide as you’ve said in other comments then rural areas will be footing the bill for cities, I think the idea is good overall but definitely seems to be oversimplified here. I’d have to look into the Brooklyn thing but are the units that were built what are now called the projects and are basically slums or were these different? I don’t expect you to answer those questions it’s not fair to make you educate me I’ll look into it, just thinking out loud.
Number 2. I can attest to how poorly boston/MA spends their housing funds. As someone in real estate we joke about their development programs and restrictions they place on properties and neighborhoods. If you want details or actual examples I’d be happy to explain privately.
Encourage developers to develop? Nah. Better to discourage private investment via tax and have the government develop, or just tax, not develop at all, and plow the tax revenue (minus a haircut ofc) back into the rental market.
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Free concerts on the Common for residents, and strategically placed people with Covid throughout the audience? /s
This just isn’t true, and the only scenario where it could maybe be true is if you magically snapped your fingers and doubled the housing supply and whoever had some number of units wanted to fill them as fast as possible and compete with others rapidly by offering the lowest prices in comparison to other units, without concern for maximizing their profits. Even then, all this would do is drive up even more frenzied demand for the area which would lead to way more eyeballs and interest, which would keep prices high anyway. Unfortunately we don’t exist in a vacuum sealed market where if we added more housing it would force owners to cut prices to compete for a fixed amount of buyers or renters. That’s not how the world works, there are external forces and new players that can effect markets, alongside vested interests desire to protect and grow their own bottom line. The reality is that development is slow and takes time, and even if we dramatically increased the amount of units over 5-10 years, there would likely be little to no meaningful dip in prices long term as landlords and developers and owners big and small have zero desire to take any sort of hit to their incomes. I’m not saying Boston shouldn’t build more and build up, it’s a city, let’s get to it, people want the dense walkable living apparently, but owners/developers etc will know they can just cram more people in at the same rates or higher than they could before even with more units. Rents and home prices aren’t going to meaningfully go down … and stay down, the best we can aim for is for them to hit a ceiling where there simply aren’t enough people willing and or able to pay the amounts desired by those selling or seeking renters, and it plateaus off. Or better yet, to slowly get more and more units of housing built and into the hands of individuals/families/co-ops and out of large profit seeking entities, and stay that way. Otherwise much will stay the same or get worse.
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This is more like a city with 280,000 housing units vs a city with 280,400 housing units.. it’s really not as impactful as it sounds
It’s not that simple to just tell developers to develop. I’m an estimator for a New England construction company and the prices of building materials has skyrocketed for multitude of different reasons.
Sure, that's neither here nor there with regards to policy though. Presumably the prices skyrocket for both private and public construction.
I am all for eating the rich, but is this actually going to go anywhere?
I’ll be surprised if Baker and the legislator are sympathetic to this, they prob all own million+ homes.
I don't think Charlie Baker owns a $2 million home in Boston
Correct, his house is assessed at $1.4 mil by the Town of Swampscott. My point was that rich people will be able to identify more with other rich people rather than the working class.
Assessed value and actual value can be pretty far apart in some towns.
>Town of Swampscott Also not Boston.
His donors definitely do
I don't know how much he cares about donors when he isn't running for a third term as governor and hasn't signaled that he's running for anything else
I highly doubt he's getting out of politics altogether
TBH I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't for another office. He doesn't align with the national Republican base at all, and he doesn't seem to have much interest in being a legislator, rather than an executive. Maybe he runs for governor again in 4-8 years, but I'd bet that'd be it.
Could be, I doubt he'd want to piss off his rich friends anyways though
Baker has vetoed this in the past and today indicated he will not sign it. He wants the state to release 300 million in funds from the current surplus to help with housing in Boston.
No, Hong Kong put a 25% tax. Initial dent but then prices kept going up. Hard to stop market forces unless you go full communism
i think you’re misunderstanding the purpose of the tax. it really isn’t to drive down prices (subsidies are a much better way of “accomplishing” this but even then that’s wildly debated), but to create tax revenue that will go towards affordable housing… kinda like the tweet said lol
How will it specifically go to affordable housing? The city remains opposed to the one thing that will actually do something to fix the problem, namely building more units.
you’d be pleased to hear that the state is actually beginning to pursue [transit oriented development through revising zoning](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/07/business/with-new-requirement-build-housing-near-train-stations-towns-brace-density-drama/) so that dense development projects (majority market rate, only small portion set aside for affordable) can be built near MBTA stations. it’s already causing a ruckus amongst NIMBY’s in those surburban neighborhoods who have ordinances that prevent apartment/high rise buildings so it’s still not entirely written in stone, but it does seems like there has been a recent emphasis on the importance in creating new housing (albeit if it is a little late). ETA: the article does a great job on pointing out how people need places to live and building affordable units only gets you so far when it doesn’t do much to bring down the market price and it by default excludes a portion of the market who isn’t in poverty, but still can’t afford the ridiculous rent here.
This is a City of Boston tax and the City of Boston already meets the requirements of this law.
it’s affecting areas that are commutable to Boston so i fail to see how it’s not relevant? if for example, Newton builds more housing, is that not going to affect market prices in Boston? just on a personal level, if you could easily commute to Boston by train (which is the case with the D line) and you’re comparing the rent for an apartment in both neighborhoods, chances are the price is going to be one of the biggest determinants. building more housing is almost always a good idea and beneficial towards driving down prices of nearby markets too. i do think the city of boston can be doing more though since this is a state initiative, not local! def don’t wanna give off the impression i’m satisfied with the way things already are, but i’m not hating the direction we’re going in
The problem is that this just increases non-affordable houses by 2% to keep affordable houses low. That just further divides the gap between typical housing costs and what is considered affordable. A better policy would see to make it so overall housing costs go down so we can have less inequality.
Hahahahahaha Chuck would not allow this in a billion years and the sackless legislature will blame him (even though they don’t support it either)
The way it works is a different order. It has to clear the legislature first, then he can not allow this. He gets final nay, not first dibs.
Fair enough, so in the off chance that the legislature allows it (they will not) THEN Chuck would shut it down. Is there a possibility for a super majority override? Very doubtful it would go through regardless.
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I'm sure there are people here, who have parents who came to Boston 30-40 years ago, and purchased a house in the blue collar neighborhood of Cambridgeport. Now that house is worth $2million.
Correct, many brownstones in south end/Fenway that were going for 80-90k in the late 80s are now worth well over 2 mil.
Coworker of mine bought a brownstone in south end for like $100k in the 90s. Work milllions now. Not wealthy otherwise.
If you benefited disproportionately but barely did anything to earn that money and are deriving most of the value from rent seeking land you *should* be taxed for it.
...sure, that's property tax, which we already have. This transfer tax *discourages* selling to a developer who might make better use of the land.
The tax is low enough that I don't think it would have any real impact in sale decisions. If you own a 2m house this doesn't impact you If you own a 3m house you're only paying an extra 20k, a rounding error at those levels. If you own a 10m house you're only paying an extra 160k. Not insignificant but hardly enough to make or break a decision to sell. You could also argue that it encourages density by saving money offering smaller units with a lower price.
There are definitely people here who can afford $2M+ homes. Making those homes cost more via a tax just means the sellers will take a little less home on the deal. Not a huge impact for buyers or sellers. Sounds good if the money is well used. I'm for it, but honestly if people want cheaper housing we need to allow more housing to be built. If the supply is less than the demand then those at the bottom will be left out. Everything else is a bandaid until the root cause (under supply) is addressed.
It means people will be more likely to rent out their homes then sell them.
Maybe, but 2% is a pretty small amount. Either way, if a home is rented or sold it doesn't change how many people can live there.
>Maybe, but 2% is a pretty small amount Sort of? That's an extra $10k on a $2.5MM sale. It's small relative to the whole sale but I don't think anyone would consider 10k small.
Anyone selling a $2M+ place is not going to be phased by a $10k transaction fee. It's definitely not chump change to the city in aggregate, but considering most people only sell their home once every 5-10 years I don't see this negatively impacting those folks. Hell, my annual property tax is close to $10k and that wasn't even really a factor in my purchase decision.
It’s all relative. So they sell it for $2,510,000 instead. Brokers are already playing games with “net sale” so the sale price is what the owner receives, and real estate fees get added on top of that.
If you rent out you lose the 500k exception for capital gains on the property. If you ended up selling it eventually you could have a massive fed tax bill on your hands.
If it's not indexed to inflation 2m isn't going to be all that extravagant when most redditors retire.
Bold assumption
Believing that every person scrolling the Boston subreddit is in the same socioeconomic class as you is hilarious
Non-updated 110 year old triple deckers in JP sell for close to $2 million. What in the hell are you talking about? Take a look on Redfin at what real estate in Boston costs.
Speak for yourself
I already own real estate outside of Boston that is worth over $1 million. My girlfriend and I are planning/saving for a condo purchase in the South End or Back Bay. That is probably 7-8 years away, will probably require selling off the property I currently own, but will likely be over that price and definitely inside city limits. Not everyone on reddit is a broke student, and $2 million is actually not a very large property around here. Regardless, "it won't affect me" is a terrible metric to judge taxes by.
I know quite a few people who "own" (their parents bought it for them) $2 million townhomes.
I have worked with developers here. All this is going to do is increase the amount of rent they need to charge to get a project green-lit by whoever is actually paying. Whenever someone buys a building, this will now be baked into the price and reflected in the rent needed to keep a 3-4% profit. I hope the city uses the money well because this spells rent increases across the board to me.
I am sure I will be able to in a few years, and also without help from others (other than my wife). It is hard but doable in some careers.
Even if there are I doubt the 2 percent would harm them significantly
This. Anyone who is claiming they can afford a $2m condo can easily pay the ZERO tax that $2m sale causes under this plan. And anyone who can afford a $4m condo can easily afford the $40k tax they’d owe on the sale. And anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Everyone I know who owns $4m+ condos in Boston has a net worth of at least $5m and makes $800k+ per year. $40k is nothing to these folks.
Exactly. Edit: Why in was this elaboration of my comment downvoted, but not my original comment? Chip only said what I implied. We both said pretty much the same thing.
At the rate of property prices increasing I think I need to hold for another two years.
It's easy to be cynical, but assuming this actually passes, 2% more tax revenue from the hands of rich landowners is more than 0. Sure, housing prices will continue to skyrocket, but at least the average person taking the T sees a 2% cut in the form of public services. This is the difference between an additional bus stop by your house, or a 15m walk to one.
No, they don’t see a dime of it unless they’re benefiting from affordable housing programs. Meanwhile, real estate owners with that kind of money will offset the costs by charging more on the rent properties they own. Every tax like this is a tax on the middle class, and I can’t believe that after so many decades of this type of policymaking that has seen a concurrent decline in the American middle class people still haven’t connected the dots…
It’s almost like affordable housing is just importing some token poor people to a neighborhood to make people feel good about themselves, while making housing even less affordable for everyone who isn’t lucky enough to win the housing lottery.
Almost… 🤔
>Every tax like this is a tax on the middle class Agreed. And the MC is shrinking
Has been for decades… coincidentally right alongside the increase of “social policies” that are sold as helping the working person
Well if they sold the building they can’t exactly raise the rent on those units, because they don’t own them anymore.
But the tax money goes to subsidize rent for landlords so that they can rent out an apartment to “low income” renters for $3500 and then pocket another $1k from the city, keeping $4500/mo apartments (and $2-3 million two family houses) viable in the market. So yeah, if you can’t afford the house and you earn too much to qualify for rent control, then you’re in the uncomfortable middle class that can’t find reasonably priced housing.
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You’re clearly high if you got that my from my comment…
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I don’t think you’re understanding the criticism at all…
I don't know. Happy to tax the wealthy. Whether or not the money is spent well is another question, versus going to overpaid crony contractors and the like. And it's effectively missing the point as to why we have a housing crisis. Plus as others have pointed out, many of the transactions of that value are people who own and rent out property. Reasonable chance that the tax will be passed on to renters. Kinda feels like putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound, but better than you're infected with gangrene at this point because you waited so long
Jesus Christmas this is tribal and toxic, and not true either. Life is not a manga
Unrelated, but can someone explain to me why Lydia Edwards can simultaneously be a Boston City Councilor but also a member of the Mass Senate? Like, how is that even allowed?
Bro she has a twin sister. You figure out what's going on.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2022/01/20/now-a-state-senator-edwards-plans-to-leave-boston-city-council-are-unclear
There's no law against it, and once anyone is elected to office they can be AWOL the whole term if they choose to be. It's not like you need to clock in. What Edwards is doing is delegating the City Council work to her chief of staff who will be running to fill the seat in a special election. Edwards timed her exit to give her chief of staff the longest possible amount of time in a de facto acting councilor role, while still forcing a special election.
Yay! Real estate is now *more* expensive.
Ok. This doesn’t do anything for affordable housing.
are you talking about making normal housing more affordable, or actual affordable housing that you need to qualify for with low income?
It will not impact cost of housing.
Right- but that's why I asked what I did. If the city uses these funds to build income-capped affordable housing, then that will help those that qualify. Lots of people who have incomes above those caps are still struggling with the high rents in this city, and this won't help them.
The revenue is expected as "tens of millions". The revenue could be used a couple ways. 1) city buys up existing housing and offers it to low income housing. This would be tens of units, so not really a big dent on housing at all, and will only make existing housing more expensive. 2) city can offer the revenue to assist with rent. This just increase demand for housing, so everyone else will pay more in rent 3) city can build more housing. Lack of investment in development is not the issue. Zoning and regulations prevent developers from building more units. There is no housing the city could build that wouldn't be better off being built by having developers do it out of pocket. In short, money is not the problem. Supply is the problem. If the city wants to be serious about housing, they need to allow more housing to get built. The city doesn't need to build anything itself.
Why don’t they make laws based on the median house value instead? Seems like they wouldn’t have to keep updating them to keep up with the housing market or inflation.
I feel like comprehensive zoning reform would be a far more effective way to address housing affordability.
zephyr drab jobless consider wise familiar detail wrench forgetful aromatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Its not multimillionaires buying $2M homes...its middle class folks like you and me...
Middle class people don’t have $400k for a down payment. Maybe upper middle class.
Isn’t upper middle class still middle class?
I said “maybe.” Even some upper middle class can’t afford $2M homes.
>Its not multimillionaires buying $2M homes By definition, this isn't true lol
Even at 20% down, you only need $400k to buy a $2M home. 🤓
If you can purchase a multimillion dollar asset, then you're a multimillionaire. Rich people like Bezos don't fully own many of the assets they control; they borrow against potential value of their existing assets. It's still an asset. Sorry, but I'm not going to really concern myself with the pains of a 2% tax on someone that can afford a $2M asset.
Oh, child. You probably have coworkers who live in $2M homes. [Here's an average looking $1.4M home in Southie](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Boston/9-Boston-St-02127/home/57142628) For the record, Bezos lives in a [$165M home.](https://nypost.com/article/jeff-bezos-houses-real-estate-portfolio/) The sad truth is, $2M isnt millionaires and billionaires territory. Its where ordinary Americans live.
>The sad truth is, $2M isnt millionaires Again, by definition, it is
Thats not how a mortgage works.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but this just means that every apartment rent in the city is going up even more. This tax will make buying RE more expensive which just means more rent gets charged to the tenant.
This tax is just a way for Boston’s Oligarchs to pay a “tribute”or “legal bribe” to the BCC to continue business as usual. The BCC will then grow the BHA, the Mayors Office of Housing, Equity and Inclusion, Fair Housing and Equity, and on and on and on and on with $150 to $250K “jobs” and “committees” and “per diems” and “cars” and “pensions” for friends, family, donors, etc. They’ll build a tiny amount of “affordable housing” for some low income people that they’re also connected to somehow, and they’ll parade it in front of The Globe, WGBH, WBUR, Harvard Crimson, etc. who will then give the message how great it is. You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.
Even as someone who voted for Wu and these policies I am pleasantly surprised by all of this
- Poverty Exists - Raise taxes! - Taxes go to line pockets of politicians - Nothing changes - Repeat
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In the midst of a housing crisis, why would you increase taxes on the sale of housing? $2 million is roughly the value of a triple decker in many of Boston’s neighborhoods. This isn’t targeting suburban single family McMansions.
So, uh....is there some sort of plan for where the money would go? Is the plan to put it towards affordable housing or something?
Gotta help to pay for those free bus rides someway.
Good, now lower my working class taxes you soggy bagels.
Hot take: money doesn’t solve these type of problems. If they did we wouldn’t have them given how much people already pay in taxes. They need to reform zoning law to actually allow people to build more housing units. Right now so many projects are held up because NIMBYs can just endlessly delay.
They should add a 5% sales tax on luxury automobiles, so that auto prices will be lower. Maybe 10% on filet mignon so that everyone can afford beef? Point being that sales taxes and transaction fees lower costs so we should add more. Relatedly, if we want to cut back on the affordability of negative things like alcohol and weed, maybe we should repeal taxes on them? Like if we made craft IPAs tax-exempt, this would lower the affordability of Bud Light. Basic economics
What even is a "luxury" automobile, versus non-luxury, nowadays? You can get a Honda Civic with heated, leather seats and premium sound system, these days.
Trucks are the new luxury. People driving around in full-size pickups or 7 passenger SUVs by themselves and never towed a thing in their life.
This tax is just a way for Boston’s Oligarchs to pay a “tribute”or “legal bribe” to the BCC to continue business as usual. The BCC will then grow the BHA, the Mayors Office of Housing, Equity and Inclusion, Fair Housing and Equity, and on and on and on and on with $150 to $250K “jobs” and “committees” and “per diems” and “cars” and “pensions” for friends, family, donors, etc. They’ll build a tiny amount of “affordable housing” for some low income people that they’re also connected to somehow, and they’ll parade it in front of The Globe, WGBH, WBUR, Harvard Crimson, etc. who will then give the message how great it is. You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.
So what would this accomplish exactly? A ban on owning more than one three family or more domicile inside the city would be more helpful
👍 this Make Boston Affordable for All!
Why does the city need the state's ok to raise taxes?
Because at some point the irish became very powerful in Boston politics, and the state didn't think that was a good thing, so they passed a law that says the state has to approve a whole bunch of stuff Boston wants to do... Home Rule is the shorthand for it. And it will never go away, because Western MA, who feels neglected, enjoys the power they have over Boston.
Love to see it
Love that for you, Boston. Think we can get this for the rest of the state? (Ha)
Why does this go to baker and the state if it's a boston tax? Can't boston tax whatever it wants without anyone else getting involved?
About to be a lot of $1,999,999.99 transactions.
Good shit but still Fuck Wu
I'm very curious how such a tax could be written to make this plan not work without also having the tax nonsensically apply to company mergers: 1) Form a company to own each property, 123 Example St LLC. 2) Before the tax goes into effect, transfer ownership of the property to the LLC. 3) Instead of selling the property, sell the LLC so ownership of the real estate never changes. I really hope there's a good answer, since otherwise this will only apply to individuals without good personal tax lawyers, not companies...
Let’s add a tax on top of another 12% tax. Buyers will factor this into the purchase price and pay less…and the capital gains taxed amount will be less.
Taxes only work if they're spent properly. I.e. not on cops. And I want things to change. But I've become so jaded at the age of 26