posted by Tom Moertel at 7:13 PM /
66 comments
In the following letter to Blog-Lebo, reader and frequent commenter John Kendrick offers an interesting analysis of Mt. Lebanon real estate. He argues that Mt. Lebanon ought to raise the value of its homes if it is to pay for its government’s spending habits:
To the Editors of Blog-Lebo:
Below are a histogram and descriptive statistics of all residential assessed property values in Mt. Lebanon. The data was generated on January 4, 2010. I would like to leave the interpretation of the data to the readers, but I would like to point out that:
My personal opinion is that our community cannot absorb the tax burden to pay for the looming school district and municipal expenditures. Therefore, we will need to enact economic development policies that will increase property values. I would like to know what the community would like to suggest, and I will offer two ideas of my own. My suggestion is that we think of a ways to increase the value of Mt Lebanon real estate. These are my two ideas:
Idea 1: The School District and the Municipality enact policies and programs to move the properties that have an assessed value in the first quartile of the distribution to the fourth quartile of the distribution. One approach would be to initiate a program that would do the following:
When any person voluntarily sells a home with an assessed value less than $115,000 and the buyer agrees to tear-down the home and replace that home with a new home, then the school district will abate the property tax for 5 years. This program would be open to 50 homes per year for 5 years. In the end we would have replaced 250 homes in the first quartile with an assessed value under $115,000 with 250 homes having an assessed value over $199,600. In principle, the tax revenue from each home site would double.
Idea 2: The School District would abate the school district real estate tax for any residential homeowner over the age of 59-1/2 years. This should impact about one-third of the homes in Mt Lebanon. For many years our community has experienced “The Process” where people relocate to our community to educate their kids, and then the move upon graduation to avert the high school-district taxes. There are several aspects of this idea that appeal to me, but one is that I would expect the number of homes “coming to the market” every year to decline since the motivation to avert high taxes would disappear as the homeowners age. Basic supply and demand suggests that as the supply is curtailed then the price of the available property should increase.
Do either of these ideas appeal to the community? Would anyone else like to suggest any alternative approaches?
Sincerely,
John Kendrick
To the Editors of Blog-Lebo:
Below are a histogram and descriptive statistics of all residential assessed property values in Mt. Lebanon. The data was generated on January 4, 2010. I would like to leave the interpretation of the data to the readers, but I would like to point out that:
- The statistical distribution is not normally distributed (i.e., does not follow a normal curve);
- We are 95% certain that the true mean of the population is between $164,021 and $167,283;
- We are 95% certain that the true median of the population is between $144,500 and $147,000.
My personal opinion is that our community cannot absorb the tax burden to pay for the looming school district and municipal expenditures. Therefore, we will need to enact economic development policies that will increase property values. I would like to know what the community would like to suggest, and I will offer two ideas of my own. My suggestion is that we think of a ways to increase the value of Mt Lebanon real estate. These are my two ideas:
Idea 1: The School District and the Municipality enact policies and programs to move the properties that have an assessed value in the first quartile of the distribution to the fourth quartile of the distribution. One approach would be to initiate a program that would do the following:
When any person voluntarily sells a home with an assessed value less than $115,000 and the buyer agrees to tear-down the home and replace that home with a new home, then the school district will abate the property tax for 5 years. This program would be open to 50 homes per year for 5 years. In the end we would have replaced 250 homes in the first quartile with an assessed value under $115,000 with 250 homes having an assessed value over $199,600. In principle, the tax revenue from each home site would double.
Idea 2: The School District would abate the school district real estate tax for any residential homeowner over the age of 59-1/2 years. This should impact about one-third of the homes in Mt Lebanon. For many years our community has experienced “The Process” where people relocate to our community to educate their kids, and then the move upon graduation to avert the high school-district taxes. There are several aspects of this idea that appeal to me, but one is that I would expect the number of homes “coming to the market” every year to decline since the motivation to avert high taxes would disappear as the homeowners age. Basic supply and demand suggests that as the supply is curtailed then the price of the available property should increase.
Do either of these ideas appeal to the community? Would anyone else like to suggest any alternative approaches?
Sincerely,
John Kendrick
Labels: john kendrick, letter to the editor, property taxes, the future of Mt. Lebanon
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