Dan Patrick Launches Operation Double Bird
Property tax cuts for old people subsidized by young families—conservative???
Only days after Texas voters approved a $50,000 boost to the homestead exemption for homeowners 65 and older, Dan Patrick held a press conference to unveil yet another major tax break for baby boomers, even as data shows young Texans are struggling more than ever to buy a home.
He is calling this “Operation Double Nickel” where the appraisal rate for homeowners 55 and older will be frozen and they will no longer be subject to appraisal-rape, effectively making property taxes a non-issue for a huge number of voters. A more fitting name is Operation Double Bird, because that’s what Patrick is giving young families.
Patrick began by reciting statistics on the housing market which are incorrect to various degrees. The situation is getting worse at such a rapid pace that it appears Dan Patrick hasn’t researched the housing market since his THC jihad. He stated:
CLAIM: The median home price is $332,000
The median price is actually $342,500. A small discrepancy, but you can already see that Patrick is just going to say whatever. Patrick mentioned specifically that he is listing these statistics without any notes and that he “just knows this.” So apparently the source of these numbers are himself, which doesn’t seem very serious.
CLAIM: The median “home owner” is 58 years old
Did he mean homebuyer?
CLAIM: The median new home buyer is 35
Again, Patrick said his source is, and I quote, “I just know this.” The age of first time homebuyers is actually 40, which has been widely reported due to how shocking it is.
Patrick said “the media doesn’t report these numbers.” He is correct in that the media does not typically give wrong or outdated information.
Obviously, we have supplemented these graphs with additional context.
That was the end of Patrick’s statistics freestyle, but here are a few more.
First-time home buyers now make up only 21 % of all home purchases, the lowest share ever recorded (data goes back to 1981). Source source source
The share of buyers with children under 18 living at home dropped to 24 %, an all-time low (versus 58 % back in 1985) source source
Wait, does a society need to have children? Whoops!
Children have it especially tough since they can’t donate to Dan Patrick’s campaign.
Median down payments soared. The median down payment among all buyers is now 19 %, including 10 % for first-time buyers and 23 % for repeat buyers. This is the highest level for first-time buyers since 1989 and the highest for repeat buyers since 2003. source source source
All-cash buyers are surging. 26% of all purchases and among repeat buyers, 30% paid all cash for their purchase showing that people with established wealth and equity (rather than first-timers) increasingly dominate homebuying. source source source
Median down payment for first-time buyers was 10%, the highest level since 1989. source
Median down payment for repeat buyers was 23%, the same as the prior year and the highest since 2003. source
This data is nationwide, but there’s not any indication that Texas is doing better than the national average. In fact, you may be interested to know which states are doing the best in home ownership for young people. Source
Older people have more wealth than younger people, which makes sense because they had lived longer. But it’s hard to imagine why Patrick would be so aggressive about giving those specific people a massive, long-term tax break other than he is simply buying votes with handouts like a Democrat.
It also seems that Operation Double Bird will create a situation where old people can vote in bond elections to raise taxes on everyone but themselves, which is possibly the most perverse incentive of all.
A recent survey of over a million Americans puts Patrick’s announcement in context. Older respondents are far more likely to call the economy “fairly good,” while younger Americans crowd into the “fairly bad” and “very bad” columns.
This advertisement from the 50’s when Dan Patrick was a child shows a 3 bedroom costs less than $100,000 in today’s dollars.
Must have been nice.
As we have said 1,836 times on this website, we have millions of illegal aliens in Texas occupying homes, and that drives up the prices. This is simple supply and demand, which is actually something you can talk about in a “freestyle” manner, unlike complex economic statistics. Nothing has been done or even said by Patrick or any other Republicans in Austin about making it illegal to rent to illegal aliens.
Greg Abbott may also be losing his marbles, just based on certain things we see and hear. He hasn’t gone to India to court H-1B workers to displace Texans in a while, nor has he gone to a public World Economic Forum event recently, but it looks like the plan for us to own nothing and be happy is moving right along.
Good points but consider this: when You are younger and buy a home budgeting what you can afford monthly, but taxes keep increasing due to the spike in appraisal of that home over years and can no longer afford the home, and compound that with retiring on much lower income, you become punished for making wise choices investing in a home. As a member of the county tax appraisal review board, I can say that you are not fairly representing the struggles of seniors. And by the way, your meme is deceptive. When you are renting, I can assure you that you are paying property taxes: landlords aren’t donating when they pay property taxes, they raise your rent. The real problem with Lt. Dan’s strategy is that he did not pair his plan to include a boost for first time home buyers. Congress has however introduced a bill that is geared at putting more homes on the market for first time homebuyers. There’s much to be done!
In Minnesota (where the highest percentage of young people "own" homes) our elected officials have knowingly falsified figures where all homes are now collateral for bogus bond issues.