Great detective work!

Kinf of ironic that a lefty like Scheer enjoys the fruits of capitalism so much, but then again, Noam Chomsky owns at least two yachts!

Hmmm, editor of an underground communist newspaper ... sure paid better than the monthly libertarian newsletter I edited (and wrote and printed and mailed). He probably embezzled the funds from the KGB.

This is interesting to know. I live a few blocks away from one of his houses. The value seems about accurate.

I have to wonder about this nonsense though. You know most "lefties" are capitalists. Is this too hard to understand?

Well bugger me. Whodathunk a (one time) communist would want to own property?

Excellent!!!And now that this has been linked by Glenn, this commie poseur will get lots of attention, tho not the kind he wants!

I note that in your listing of homes the Berkeley house was bought in 1979 but in your later commentary you say "to buy real estate in Berkeley since at least as early as 1969".

Cheers

Sameer,

That is correct. The Forest Ave. home was purchased in 1979. If you visit the Alameda County Clerk site (linked above) and query for Robert Scheer you will see a number of other transactions, the earliest being from 1969.

Ha! Great post! You gotta love public records.

Very good report, but one thing I must disagree with: "Scheer, inexplicably, resorts to the politics of resentment and class warfare." "Inexplicably"? The man has made his whole career on this kind of resentment. The word there should be "predictably."

While it's true that proposition 13 has disproportionate tax based on when you bought your home, that's not the point. Pre-proposition 13, all California property was being reassessed twice a year and some counties were also increasing the tax rate. My property tax bill exceeded my mortgage payment for one year. Prop 13 means that we ALL pay less tax. "Fair" to a socialist California legislator means everyone suffers more to be equal.

A 10-bedroom 4-bath apartment house in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Berkeley, just a few blocks from campus and the Claremont hotel, assessed at $198,564? Ridiculous! $1,985,640, maybe. You can't buy a 1,000-sq. foot bungalow in a decent Berkeley neighborhood for less than $300,000.

-Chris

Just one thing:

I think the real value of Sheer's property is probably more than $2 million. A lot more.

There are virtually no stand-alone structures available in Berkeley for less than $500,000. And two-bedroom condos are in the $400,000+ range. Featured on the current ERI Real Estate web site of listing is a three-bedroom home in Berkeley for $975,000. A 10-bedroom 3754-square foot house is HUGE! If it's worth less than $1.5 million I'd be shocked. If it's worth $3.0-million, I wouldn't be surprised.

A $555,000 Santa Monica condo in 1992 is surely worth at least $1 million today. Heck, it's tough to find a teardown home in Santa Monica for less than a million. The median sales price of a home in Santa Monica as of October 2001 was a staggering $845,000 according to TheMLS.com -- and it's only gone up since then. There's one current listing on 15th Street (albeit a large house) at $2.5 million and a three-bedroom house on 14th at $829,000.

$555,000 was a lot of money for a condo in 1992. It's likely a very nice condo.

Not knowing what the particular properties are it's tough to get an idea of their total value. But real estate values in California (particularly Berkeley and Santa Monica) have been skyrocketing. While my experience here in Santa Barbara isn't perfectly analogous, the three-bedroom house I bought in 1997 for $260,000 was re-assessed at $700,000 when I refinanced this year.

My mind boggles to think how much Scheer's holdings might actually be worth. A 10-bedroom home? In what is considered a highly desireable community? Wow. And a condo in Santa Monica beyond that. And another in downtown L.A. This guy's rich.

And his politics fit in perfectly both in Berkeley and Santa Monica.

The current valuations of California real estate are based on the modest and predictable property taxes that Proposition 13 guarantees. If, for instance, my house were reassessed at its current valuation my property taxes would go up more than 150-percent. Add a rate increae on top of that and... ugh, the knees buckle. Any changes to the current Prop 13 status quo could wash a lot of us out of our homes and/or send property values crashing.

Because Prop 13 is part of the state constitution it would be tough to change. And it should be too, because it underpins much of the economy.

Robert Scheer is a first-class ass. That he enjoys his position in American main-stream media is both a mystery and a crime.

Scheer is a communist. Few people realize that he was enamored with Kim Il Sung's "People's Republic" (circa 1969). Leopards don't change spots; Scheer was (and is) a communist -- albeit one with at least three houses, and significant bourgeois comforts. He is intellectually bankrupt, a proselytizing, sanctimonious hypocrite.

You've got to be kidding, right? Whatever you may think about Robert Scheer, suggesting that he begin a crusade to raise taxes by simply paying more himself is sheer lunacy. Or perhaps bad satire, I can't tell.

Prop 13 is definitely a big problem in California. The solution will be to repeal the cap, and then gradually raise taxes on newly acquired property. It will probably be necessary to grandfather existing properties to prevent people from being kicked out of their homes by higher property taxes, just because their properties have greatly increased in value.

None of this has anything to do with what any one person pays in tax, whether it be Robert Sheer or Warren Buffett. It is the aggregate effect and consequent increase in revenue to support schools and other necessary public services which is important.

Ole

The point of Prop 13 was to protect seniors, disabled and low income home owners from escalating property taxes. It has performed that objective. That some will find and exploit loopholes in the tax code for profit is not news.

Think of the consequences to the independently living disabled, young families and elderly if Prop 13 were amended. The median entry level home in the SF Bay Area is $720,000...for a small, older home in a decent but not ritzy East Bay neighborhood...we're not talking mansion here. The SF Peninsula is 200K higher.

A friend recently bid on a 1960's rancher in Montclair that went for $260,000 OVER the $830,000 asking price...30 contracts were written.

This is the reality of the Bay Area home market and why Prop 13 is vital.

The oft-pushed meme that we need higher property taxes to "pay for education" is something liberals and the left push, but it's a lie. What we're really paying for is hugely bloated public sector union contracts, idiotic power contracts, and further billions thrown away on useless fiascos like bilingual education, aid to illegal immigrants, and an enormous bureaucracy. And those same liberals and leftists want more of our money so they can throw even more of it down these various ratholes.

I own property in San Diego, CA and found this release from the Libertarian Party interesting. While I haven't fact checked the numbers I am in agreement that out of control spending is a bigger problem than any politico will admit. Just ask Gray Davis.

IT'S NOT THE FAULT OF PROPOSITION 13

by Richard Rider

Chair Emeritus, San Diego Libertarian Party

11 July, 2003

For 25 years, one of the most enduring canards is that "Prop 13 gutted local California governments." Every imaginable failing by local government has, at one point or another, been blamed on Prop. 13.

Indeed, it has always been my admittedly facetious contention that, if the voters hadn't passed Prop 13, local politicians and bureaucrats WOULD have -- because Prop 13 has been the widely-accepted alibi politicians trot out time and time again to explain their ongoing failure to manage their budgets and properly deliver the fundamental government services for which we pay.

Local politicians DO have one legitimate beef about property taxes -- the state is confiscating a huge chunk of this revenue. But that is not the fault of Prop 13. Most of this revenue shift to the state occurred supposedly as a temporary measure in 1993 to shore up state funding during the recession. Of course, this "temporary" measure has become permanent, and THAT is what the local politicos SHOULD be screaming about.

The core contention by the big spenders is that we don't pay enough property taxes -- that Prop 13 destroyed the tax base for local government. These whiners cleverly omit the actual historical figures -- the data destroys their argument. Consider San Diego County's property tax history.

In the year prior to Prop 13 taking effect, San Diego city and county property owners paid $638.6 million in property tax. The next year, property tax revenues, which had soared 20% in just the last two years, dropped back dramatically to $353.4 million to meet Prop 13's 1% of appraised value limitation. Since then, property tax revenues have climbed rapidly. Within six years, property tax revenues exceeded pre-Prop 13 levels.

This fiscal year (ending this June), total county property taxes are $2,834.6 million, over four times more than we paid the year PRIOR to Prop 13, and eight times more than the first year Prop 13 took effect.

However, to be accurate, we need to adjust this figure to reflect both population growth and inflation since the passage of Prop 13. Total San Diego County population has grown from 1,694,000 in 1978 to about 2,835,000 today, a population increase of 67.4%.

During this same time, the total inflation has been about 180%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (there is an inflation calculator on its home page -- http://www.bls.gov/ ). Thus, if the bloated PRE-Prop 13 property tax revenue had continued to grow by inflation plus population growth (totaling 274.4%), revenues would now total $2,218.5 million. But this amount is over $600 million less than is now being collected WITH Prop 13 in place!

Stated differently, we are now paying 27.8% more property taxes than the old bloated tax, even after adjusting for population and inflation increases. The mind boggles to think how much higher property tax payments would be if we had NOT passed Prop 13.

Sadly, one can be confident that, even if we HAD paid all that extra property tax, the spendthrift politicians would STILL be telling us that we need to pay even higher taxes. They spend all they can lay their hands on, and then plead government poverty.

Actually, total tax revenues from real estate are growing at an ever faster rate. In the last 5 years, San Diego County core property tax revenue has risen 56.5%, with no slowdown in sight. In addition, in the last decade, a host of property tax assessments for everything from school bonds to road median maintenance have been levied against property owners. And local building "fees" (in essence, extortion charges levied to get permission to build -- fees ultimately paid by the property buyers) are now among the highest in the nation, particularly within the city of San Diego.

Add to that increase the rapid growth of other forms of local government revenue (especially sales tax rate increases and water/sewer charges), and it is apparent that San Diego politicians do not have a revenue problem -- they have a SPENDING problem.

You. Are. God.

Our local lefties are no better. The two old hippies (complete with grey ponytails) who run Toronto's far left alt weekly, Villiage Voice style rag are wealthier than 90 percent of their readership.

I am surprised that more people do not comment on the incredible distortions that occur with the "new buyer gets raped" property tax structure. How does it make any economic sense to only consider market value (for property tax purposes) those properties that change hands? How is this possibly "fair"? If you want to protect the elderly (or any other needy people)you simply set up the tax law with appropriate credits based on age, income etc. By making a blanket policy grossly favoring long term owners over new owners you needlessly subsidize people like Warren Buffet who, regardless of their age, obviously do not need public assistence. If all properties were assessed at fair market value, continuously, the market would be more liquid (probably cheaper) AND all property owners would be sensitive to extortionate tax policies (not just the most recent "suckers").
This happened to me 15 years ago. Now I benefit by it but it is still an economically irrational and unfair way to raise tax revenue from property owners.

SOMEONE CALL THE TAX ASSESSOR QUICK! IF Sheer's property is valued at 198,000 (an absolute imposibility) then hee hee..let's turn him in. But if it really is valued at 198,000, then he can thank Prop 13. Properties purchased before 1978? were rolled back in value and then allowed to increase only at a rate of around 2% per year. I'm to lazy to look up exact figures, but my premise is correct.

Additionally, no one ever seems to grasp that it really doesn't hurt those young homebuyers to have their property tax rates set at the time of purchase. The cost of property taxes in CA becomes a value that is incorporated into the total cost/month of the affordable house payment at any given level of income. Like the cost of a loaf of bread during inflation, raising or lowering property taxes FOR ALL ALL AVAILABLE HOUSES, at the time of purchase, (in any given area) has the effect of a GENERAL adjustment in the value of homes....depending on overall market supply, relative salaries, job availability and interest rates. That most people can't grasp that fact...doesn't make it any less true. No I'm not going to argue or explain myself, if you can't grasp it, go back to school. That's the problem with a poor education...people like Sheer can continue to manipulate the ignorant to their own advantage.

Great job, Stefan. If the editors of local newspapers in Scheer's area had any sense, they'd syndicate this article.

Larry Jordan writes:

> "None of this has anything to do with what any one person pays in tax, whether it be Robert Sheer or Warren Buffett. It is the aggregate effect ... which is important."

Respectfully, I beg to disagree. Socialists of all stripes, from the moderately liberal to the thuggishly Stalinistic, are always accusing those on the Right of hypocrisy. If William Bennett preaches virtue to the masses while practicing vice in his own private life, why, that's egregious, at least to a liberal.

I say, fair enough. By the same principle, then, why should I be willing to pay higher taxes in order to make Robert Scheer happy, if Robert Scheer isn't himself willing voluntarily to live by the same constraints he advocates for me? Mr. Scheer is free to open his checkbook and send as much money to the government coffers, over and above his tax bill, as he likes. He doesn't need to wait for the law to require it of him, or of me.

Some people want me and everyone else to live under oppressive taxation. I'm a lot more tolerant that that: I only want those who espouse oppressive taxation to have to live under it.

I'm in the process of buying a condo in CA. Here's my question. Since I pay tax on my income, why tax me on the place where I live? And on my car? And on everything I buy? Can't we just get one thing figured out, tax that, and be done with it?

So Scheer the eimmoc is really a yhtlif tsilatipac?

Who'd a thunk it?

Becky,

If you aren't going to explain it (even if I ask nicely), what's the point in bringing it up? To insult those who disagree with you and congratulate yourself on being so smart?

"The cost of property taxes in CA becomes a value that is incorporated into the total cost/month of the affordable house payment at any given level of income. "

Doesn't it depend on how much of the increase is incorporated into less revenue for the seller and how much of it translates into increased cost for the buyer? Seems to me this relationship isn't all that simple. Depends upon how much either can afford, and lots of other stuff too.

For example: The high cost of buying property in CA (of which property taxes are a part) translates into higher rent, even though property that is rented is less likely to have high property taxes (when compared to any newly bought home). This is because the market dictates the cost of rent, not the gross cost of maintaining the property alone. Since most residential renters are younger or poorer, its seems obvious to me that the overall cost of housing hurts these groups more than others.

For your arguement to be valid, you would have to show that

a) the high cost of homes in California is in no way related to the property tax structure

or

b) Any difference between the amount the seller and buyer will pay in property taxes will mean less revenue for the seller, not a higher cost to the buyer

Now, I'm not saying this isn't true (partly mostly, completely, whatever), I'm just saying I don't see how its obvious that it IS true.

Futhermore, I don't understand the inflation/bread analogy. Inflation causes the cost of everything to go up, including bread, but that also means that revenue increases. (Ok, get that.) This in turn translates into higher incomes (well, that depends on how the increased revenue is distributed, doesn't it?, but ok for now.) But you're equating property taxes to inflation, and that's where you lose me. Property taxes are a base cost of a particular item, they don't necessarily affect the cost of everything the way that inflation does. The cost of bread doesn't cause a rise in inflation, inflation causes a rise in the cost of bread. After all California's problem is that the price of homes is outpacing any rise in income. If they were both growing at the same rate, we wouldn't be complaining, would we?

Most importantly, if you would like me to agree with you and vote accordingly, you may want to bother explaining yourself and presenting evidence rather than simply saying the equivalent of: "Well, if you don't get it then you're dumb, so why should I bother explaining?"

Seriously, how childish can you get?