Why Haven't Voters Been Buying the Case for Increasing Housing Supply?
One reason this is less of a problem in Texas is the high property tax rates (about 3% per year vs. 1% here in California). Combine that with no prop 13 and you have homeowners with mixed incentives — yes, equity appreciation is nice, but ouch the tax bill! Thus you have a lot of home owners who support keeping costs down via supply growth.<p>In Texas, taxes are heavily leavied against _wealth_ and _lifestyle_: high property tax, high sales tax (but none on staple goods and tax holidays for back to school etc.), and no income tax.<p>Conversely in CA, the tax structure makes it easy to shelter wealth (low property taxes AND they never increase), with moderate sales tax and high, almost flat income taxes (the brackets ramp quickly to 9.5% at $45k then are flat to $1m&#x2F;yr).<p>Not surprising so many people are moving to Texas in search of an easier ladder to climb.<p>Having made the opposite move for a big tech job, the headwinds here against upward mobility are really striking.