People on stagnant incomes, who bought their houses 20 or 30 years ago to keep their costs in hand, are being blasted out of them by steeply escalating taxes. Chicago just had a massive tax increase last fall and will get hit with another of at least 40% this fall.
I’m sure SoCal municipalities are hiking taxes drastically, too.

The result is that people are being blasted out of their houses, and rentals are escalating rapidly since large rental properties (18 units or more)are taxed very unfairly, at 3X the rate of sf homes to begin with, and have to pass the increase on to their renters.

Elders and poor home owners are being hit very, very hard.

Meanwhile, poor wage earners have been effectively priced out of non-subsidized housing altogether.

And prudent, honest first-time home buyers are priced out of the market.

And socialistic props to the housing market, such as subsidized rents and city grants for moderate-income home buyers, only make the situation worse. I’m convinced the real reason for socialized housing is to prop up overinflated home values.

I wonder if we can score rollbacks in real estate taxes when the ludicrous housing market completely collapses and prices revert to normal levels?

Compare the above with this 395 Square foot Palace listed at
$350k.
MLS ID# R703171

I live in Pasadena and this is not even large enough to qualify as a Garage! Garage must be at lease 400 square feet.

The Real Homes of Genius awards are hilarious. Keep it up! I need the laughs and to remind me to be thankful I am not in Southern Cal…

LOL, I cannot even imagine how building codes would allow a house that size to be built in the first place.

Yeah, well that’s another thing.

It’s hard to imagine our leadership in California government weren’t complicit in this massive consumer scam, if not paid off by REIC to look the other way during the 6 year run-up.

Are we to imagine that the state DIDN’T enjoy windfall taxes from the spiraling home appreciation over the past few years, and are we to think that they forgot to set aside some of the windwall revenue for the future when the inevitable market crash finally happened?

Has California forgotten the housing slump of the 1970’s? The late 1980’s/early 1990’s? The tech dotcom bubble, led by California tech firms in Silicon Valley? And now THIS?

Huh, it’s as if NO ONE in Federal or State government (from the Governator down to the State Attorney Generals Office) had a clue there was a problem in the works…