Paying more than 30% of one's income for housing-related expenses -- not just rent and utilities, or PITI plus utilities plus maintenance -- has become almost universal.
It is a form of sharecropping.
And then we must pay the dumb taxes on top of it. Sales taxes, wage taxes.
Taxing land value fully would bring the purchase price of a home down to the depreciated value of the structure plus something for the lovely mature landscaping. Instead of a downpayment on the land and building, one would, in effect, be purchasing the building from its current owner, and taking over the stream of location-based payment to the community. No down payment on that. Mortgages would be smaller, and shorter, and the sum of the mortgage payment and one's land value tax would be a lot less than the current sum of one's housing-related costs plus the dumb taxes. If one wanted to move from one city to another, selling one's home would be easier because more people could afford it, and in one's new city, one could afford a similar home, because wages in the new city would support the higher tax on the higher land value there.
Today, moving from Peoria to NYC or Silicon Valley is a whole other ballgame.
Phase this in, removing the dumb taxes, one after another, and collecting an increasing share of the annual value of the land, and our children will have better opportunities to thrive.
