The Sarasota Herald Tribune has an article in today’s paper about landlords and the trouble they’re having in the housing market. The culprit is high taxes. Local governments spent too much money (no, really) during the economic expansion and now people who can’t afford homes are the ones paying the price.
Taxes on Rutkowski’s four-unit rental property on Eighth Street in Sarasota, for example, went up from $1,537 a year in 1998 to $13,373 in 2006 — a 770 percent increase.
That means Rutkowski now has to collect about $250 per month in rent from each of the four units on the property to pay taxes compared with $33 per month 10 years ago.
A 770% increase in property taxes! What did the local governments do with all of the money? They squandered on stupid pet projects and other various nonsense. Now the poor are paying the price for the government’s lack of foresight. How anyone believes that any kind of government intervention is going to solve the nation’s problems is beyond me.
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