Why is City of Baltimore stealing houses from Black residents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article is poorly written. Property tax rates are inversely related to assessed values for homes. When properties are worth less money they township or city needs to have a higher assessed rate to cover its expenses. The taxes are not necessarily "higher than what they should be", it's just that the property tax rate needed to cover community operating expenses is higher when the average assessed value of homes is 250k vs 1M. Eg. The median home value in Baltimore City is 220k, and the property tax rate is 2.24%. In MOCO, the Median property value is 660k and the median property tax district rate is 1.25%.

Curiously, that rarely happens. Governments always find new things to do. Governments always want to expand existing programs. If house prices go down , they want to expand assistance programs. If house prices go up, they want to offer new services.

Governments sole purpose anymore is to simply grow.

[Anonymous]

Tax is the easiest way to push unwanted people out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is poorly written. Property tax rates are inversely related to assessed values for homes. When properties are worth less money they township or city needs to have a higher assessed rate to cover its expenses. The taxes are not necessarily "higher than what they should be", it's just that the property tax rate needed to cover community operating expenses is higher when the average assessed value of homes is 250k vs 1M. Eg. The median home value in Baltimore City is 220k, and the property tax rate is 2.24%. In MOCO, the Median property value is 660k and the median property tax district rate is 1.25%.

Curiously, that rarely happens. Governments always find new things to do. Governments always want to expand existing programs. If house prices go down , they want to expand assistance programs. If house prices go up, they want to offer new services.

Governments sole purpose anymore is to simply grow.

To your point:

Property Tax Assessments vs Market Values

The researchers find that property tax revenues are stable even during periods of significant real estate market volatility. …This disconnect appears strategic rather than incidental as counties are significantly more likely to reassess properties upward during market growth than to reduce assessments during a downturn.

https://www.nber.org/digest/202503/property-tax-assessments-vs-market-values

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is poorly written. Property tax rates are inversely related to assessed values for homes. When properties are worth less money they township or city needs to have a higher assessed rate to cover its expenses. The taxes are not necessarily "higher than what they should be", it's just that the property tax rate needed to cover community operating expenses is higher when the average assessed value of homes is 250k vs 1M. Eg. The median home value in Baltimore City is 220k, and the property tax rate is 2.24%. In MOCO, the Median property value is 660k and the median property tax district rate is 1.25%.

Curiously, that rarely happens. Governments always find new things to do. Governments always want to expand existing programs. If house prices go down , they want to expand assistance programs. If house prices go up, they want to offer new services.

Governments sole purpose anymore is to simply grow.

My point is that property tax bills are less variable than the assessed tax rates. A median homeowner in Baltimore city would pay around 5k in property taxes. A median homeowner in MOCO would pay 8.25k in property taxes. The median home in MOCO is worth 3x, but total taxes property taxes paid by the median homeowner is only 65% more.

[Anonymous]

Redlining and other legal means of gentrifying Black homeowners out of their properties has been happening for decades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Redlining and other legal means of gentrifying Black homeowners out of their properties has been happening for decades

Redlining is neither legal nor has it occurred in many, many decades. But you knew that.

[Anonymous]

Who the hell would want to live in Baltimore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who the hell would want to live in Baltimore

I love Baltimore thank you very much. I live in DC but you clearly have not spent much time there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tax is the easiest way to push unwanted people out.

This!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who the hell would want to live in Baltimore

My mother’s family has lived there for at least seven generations before me. I have two adult children living there now. I don’t live there anymore, but visit frequently and I’d consider it over living in NoVa. I have a rare cancer and two of the top docs for it practice in Baltimore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is City of Baltimore stealing houses from Black residents?

Baltimore not all places should have the Black voter base to keep the government in check.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/highballed-disproportionate-property-taxes-forcing-americans-homes/story?id=124312846

"Anderson's home was just one of nearly 44,000 Baltimore properties that were listed at municipal tax sales from 2019 through 2023. It was also among the 92% of those properties located in majority-nonwhite neighborhoods -- which account for 70% of parcels citywide."

"ABC's analysis found that across the country, homeowners in predominantly Black and Brown areas tend to pay higher taxes than those in mostly white neighborhoods for a house worth the same amount on the open market."

Why are black politicians stealing houses from black residents?

Good question, OP. What do you think?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is City of Baltimore stealing houses from Black residents?

Baltimore not all places should have the Black voter base to keep the government in check.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/highballed-disproportionate-property-taxes-forcing-americans-homes/story?id=124312846

"Anderson's home was just one of nearly 44,000 Baltimore properties that were listed at municipal tax sales from 2019 through 2023. It was also among the 92% of those properties located in majority-nonwhite neighborhoods -- which account for 70% of parcels citywide."

"ABC's analysis found that across the country, homeowners in predominantly Black and Brown areas tend to pay higher taxes than those in mostly white neighborhoods for a house worth the same amount on the open market."

Why are black politicians stealing houses from black residents?

Good question, OP. What do you think?

Important posts have been removed from this thread already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is City of Baltimore stealing houses from Black residents?

Baltimore not all places should have the Black voter base to keep the government in check.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/highballed-disproportionate-property-taxes-forcing-americans-homes/story?id=124312846

"Anderson's home was just one of nearly 44,000 Baltimore properties that were listed at municipal tax sales from 2019 through 2023. It was also among the 92% of those properties located in majority-nonwhite neighborhoods -- which account for 70% of parcels citywide."

"ABC's analysis found that across the country, homeowners in predominantly Black and Brown areas tend to pay higher taxes than those in mostly white neighborhoods for a house worth the same amount on the open market."

Why are black politicians stealing houses from black residents?

Good question, OP. What do you think?

Important posts have been removed from this thread already.

Good to know.

[Anonymous]

I know Baltimore pretty well. It's a black-run city, meaning the government and bureaucracy are almost entirely black. It's been like that since the 1970s. So it's hard to argue black residents were singled out based on race.

I don't know all the ins and outs of the case but I'm aware that for arrears, it's not just a case of paying back the owed taxes but you also pay interest and penalties, which can be quite stiff and quickly accumulate. The reason for why penalties exist is because it's to prevent people from playing games with taxes, deciding we'll pay taxes this year but skip next year as long as we catch up the following year. You can sort of do that with the city water bills but they're not letting anyone do that with property taxes and for good reasons!

I also don't doubt some people will try to play the data game to distort pictures. Saying black residents pay more for property taxes than whites with comparably valued houses is problematic because black and white Baltimoreans are largely apples and oranges. There's a huge poorer / working class black population but very few whites in that category because they all live in West Virginia now. I can easily see a situation where a lower educated poorer homeowner fails to take advantage of homestead tax credits while the city's white population, more affluent and higher educated, takes full advantage of it, and presto, you get "unequal" taxation despite that the homestead tax credit itself is hardly race-based.

[Anonymous]

All the government workers make 250K a year. Where else are they going to get the money if they can't tax the properties.