Glamour and gentrification go hand-in-hand in artsy ranch town Marfa
December 23, 2018 7:10 AM Subscribe
In Marfa, thanks to the vacation-home owners and retirees who have flocked to this artsy outpost in the West Texas desert, adobe also has become fashionable, a building material befitting the town’s cool mix of culture and desert aesthetic. But for many of Marfa’s longtime residents, the gentrification of the adobe home has made living in one rather expensive.
In a Texas Art Mecca, Humble Adobe Now Carries a High Cost [NYT]
Goodbye, Marfa Texas [HuffPost]
Marfa's boom is a bust for residents [Houston Chronicle]
Quirky Marfa feels growing pains [My San Antonio]
Also:
To ease gentrification pain, some Latinos embrace ‘gentefication’ to preserve culture [Chicago Tribune]
Marfa, TX:
Previously.
Previously, deux.
In a Texas Art Mecca, Humble Adobe Now Carries a High Cost [NYT]
"Required by Texas law to find more revenue, the Presidio county tax assessors realized that adobe homes in Marfa were selling at a premium, and so they raised their appraisal values in 2017, just three years after a townwide revaluation. That has meant two big tax increases, not only for owners of the high-end and expansive adobe homes with backyard pools, xeriscaped gardens and adobe walls to surround them, but also for hundreds of more modest, weather-beaten residences clustered around the south side of Marfa, where historically most of the town’s Hispanic population has lived.Marfa’s Art World Gentrification Is Pushing Out Long-Time Residents [Hyperallergic]
... While the adobe homes in Marfa are now yielding more tax dollars for Presidio County, the local schools can’t expect any windfall. Despite the living conditions of many of its 350 schoolchildren, the Marfa district is now considered “rich” by Texas standards because of the new tax revenue, and thus must refund more than $400,000 to the state for use in districts with less money.
... Originally a water stop along the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, Marfa began as a sleepy ranching town that was de facto segregated well into the 1960s. Most of the existing adobe homes were located on the south side of the railroad tracks, without plumbing and electricity.
“The Hispanics, in my time, all lived in little adobe houses,” said Rito Rivera, 78, who still lives in one of those houses. “The Anglos were ranchers — cowboys and landowners — and they could afford better material.”
The appraisal on his adobe house increased from $39,770 five years ago to $104,660 this year. Mr. Rivera recently learned that he had prostate cancer, unlucky news that came with one upside: Under state law, it helped him qualify for a veteran’s disability exemption from his rising tax bill. But an adobe home his wife inherited from family in town saw its bill spike to $1,925 from $1,170 five years earlier."
“We’re lucky the world discovered Marfa, but the week your property values get sextupled is not the best time to get people to admit it,” cartoonist Gary Oliver said. “This is a rich town because a small percentage of the people have a lot of assets. But if your taxes go up enough so you can’t pay them, what are you going to do?”More:
“We’re all sick and tired of these little fluff pieces about Marfa,” 72-year-old painter Emily Hocker said. “This is a wonderful place, but just like other wonderful places suffering from gentrification, the poor people always get shoved aside. A lot of people who grew up here are suddenly on the fringe.”
Goodbye, Marfa Texas [HuffPost]
Marfa's boom is a bust for residents [Houston Chronicle]
Quirky Marfa feels growing pains [My San Antonio]
Also:
To ease gentrification pain, some Latinos embrace ‘gentefication’ to preserve culture [Chicago Tribune]
Marfa, TX:
Previously.
Previously, deux.
Texas redistributes school tax dollars to underfunded districts? That is surprisingly progressive.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:11 AM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:11 AM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Texas stubbornly refuses an income tax so relies on regressive sales and property taxes which burden the lower income families. They have purposely rigged their tax system to benefit the rich. Why are they surprised?
posted by JackFlash at 9:57 AM on December 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by JackFlash at 9:57 AM on December 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
Exorbitant property tax is Texas' dirty secret.
posted by steamynachos at 10:17 AM on December 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by steamynachos at 10:17 AM on December 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
I think stories like this are what sold California on prop 13. If Texas tries to solve the problem at all, hopefully they can come up with a better solution.
posted by LionIndex at 10:21 AM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by LionIndex at 10:21 AM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's not just Marfa. I live in a town that is convenient for commuters now. It used to be too far out, but tollways have been put in. My house value has tripled, tax wise, in 6 years. My old ranch house has a kitchen from the 90s, with Formica counters and appliances old enough to vote, and the county has decided that even though I paid less than 200k for this house, that it is now worth more than half a million dollars. I pay more in taxes than I do in mortgage including interest.
If my son was not in high school, we would have sold like all the other neighbors without kids.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:41 AM on December 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
If my son was not in high school, we would have sold like all the other neighbors without kids.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:41 AM on December 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
> the county has decided that even though I paid less than 200k for this house, that it is now worth more than half a million dollars
What does the market say about the value of your house?
posted by thedaniel at 11:26 AM on December 23, 2018
What does the market say about the value of your house?
posted by thedaniel at 11:26 AM on December 23, 2018
I think stories like this are what sold California on prop 13. If Texas tries to solve the problem at all, hopefully they can come up with a better solution.
Better solution for whom? It would have helped many of the people pointed out as suffering. It has in CA, though the tradeoff could be, and is, debated. I've generally not been all that impressed with anti gentrification threads, particularly with those regarding instances in CA about displaced homeowners. Because Prop 13 allowed more homeowners to stay longer than they otherwise might have, and become displaced at their leisure when market forces were at their advantage.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:44 AM on December 23, 2018
Better solution for whom? It would have helped many of the people pointed out as suffering. It has in CA, though the tradeoff could be, and is, debated. I've generally not been all that impressed with anti gentrification threads, particularly with those regarding instances in CA about displaced homeowners. Because Prop 13 allowed more homeowners to stay longer than they otherwise might have, and become displaced at their leisure when market forces were at their advantage.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:44 AM on December 23, 2018
Yeah, not sure that Prop 13 eliminated gentrification. I’m not sure I’d trade massively defunding public education in trade for people (including myself) being able to hang on to houses for longer than they would have. I’d rather keep the property tax and use it to build more affordable housing. Lowering property taxes disincentivises renewal and reinvestment as a matter of course. Marfa is definitely a corner case because we are talking about historic adobe homes owned by families for generations. I’m sad about that place becoming less of itself, and people losing their place in a community, but the writing has been on the wall for years.
posted by q*ben at 12:10 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by q*ben at 12:10 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
"Required by Texas law to find more revenue, the Presidio county tax assessors realized...
Being from California, this is kind of hard to parse. In CA the Assessor carries out the legwork of legislation wrt to assessing value, but it is not the body that decides where to find more value or revenue. The way this sentence is written gives me the idea that the Assessor in TX is almost like the police chief, admonishing officers to hit a quota of tickets to raise revenue. Can anyone set me straight on TX law?
posted by vignettist at 12:42 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Being from California, this is kind of hard to parse. In CA the Assessor carries out the legwork of legislation wrt to assessing value, but it is not the body that decides where to find more value or revenue. The way this sentence is written gives me the idea that the Assessor in TX is almost like the police chief, admonishing officers to hit a quota of tickets to raise revenue. Can anyone set me straight on TX law?
posted by vignettist at 12:42 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, not sure that Prop 13 eliminated gentrification.
Ah, but nobody said it eliminated gentrification. What it has done is kept homeowners from being forced out by reason of skyrocketing tax rates due to gentrification. Instead, people increasingly sold out as they saw fit, rather than under stress of out of control tax burden. For most people, the enemy wasn't gentrification, but being unable to stay in their homes because of it. In fact, gentrification was a boon to their worth.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:54 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ah, but nobody said it eliminated gentrification. What it has done is kept homeowners from being forced out by reason of skyrocketing tax rates due to gentrification. Instead, people increasingly sold out as they saw fit, rather than under stress of out of control tax burden. For most people, the enemy wasn't gentrification, but being unable to stay in their homes because of it. In fact, gentrification was a boon to their worth.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:54 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Prop 13 was an f-you-i-got-mine bill, nothing more, nothing less. That it has had some positive effects for homeowners in wealthy areas like Berkely does not offset the ravaging of CA public education or the role it has had in rapidly inflating home prices in desirable areas.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:08 PM on December 23, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:08 PM on December 23, 2018 [10 favorites]
What does the market say about the value of your house?
When it comes to property taxes, that is irrelevant.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:18 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
When it comes to property taxes, that is irrelevant.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:18 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
What it has done is kept homeowners from being forced out by reason of skyrocketing tax rates due to gentrification.
But that wasn't really what Prop 13 was about. It was as usual about mindless Republican tax cuts for the rich. A simple alternative solution would have been to allow low income homeowners to postpone their taxes if they could not afford them, but establishing a lien against the ultimate sale of their home. Since homes were doubling and tripling in value, paying their back taxes when sold would have been no burden. But of course, for Republicans, the goal was to never pay taxes -- ever. There is no debating that this was a giveaway to the rich.
posted by JackFlash at 1:29 PM on December 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
But that wasn't really what Prop 13 was about. It was as usual about mindless Republican tax cuts for the rich. A simple alternative solution would have been to allow low income homeowners to postpone their taxes if they could not afford them, but establishing a lien against the ultimate sale of their home. Since homes were doubling and tripling in value, paying their back taxes when sold would have been no burden. But of course, for Republicans, the goal was to never pay taxes -- ever. There is no debating that this was a giveaway to the rich.
posted by JackFlash at 1:29 PM on December 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by thedaniel :What does the market say about the value of your house?
Realtors say if I drop 100k in renovations, I could probably sell it for what the county says it's worth, but as is, I could sell it for about 100k more than I paid 10 years ago, which isn't great appreciation, given it's tax value is another 200k above that. I've had comps done, and argued with the tax board every year, even inviting them inside my house to that it's well maintained, but we spent all of our "renovation" budget recovering from a tornado, and the subsequent storm chasing contractors.
A big part of it, in our area, is that these are old homestead houses. Each house in our neighborhood sits on between 1-5 acres. There's about 100 acres with about 26 houses. We have NO Home Owners Association, and are one of the very few properties in the metroplex where that is a true statement. We used to have exemptions for agriculture, and small livestock, but they've taken those away as they've bulldozed the real farms and put in zero lot houses. The neighborhood behind us has 6 houses for every acre, where it used to be corn, coyotes and owls.
Developers would very much like this neighborhood, please. These old box houses could be bulldozed and turned into million dollar mcmansion properties, and the city is well aware of how that would impact their budget. I, perhaps in need of a tinfoil hat, believe they are taxing us out on purpose.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:30 PM on December 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
Realtors say if I drop 100k in renovations, I could probably sell it for what the county says it's worth, but as is, I could sell it for about 100k more than I paid 10 years ago, which isn't great appreciation, given it's tax value is another 200k above that. I've had comps done, and argued with the tax board every year, even inviting them inside my house to that it's well maintained, but we spent all of our "renovation" budget recovering from a tornado, and the subsequent storm chasing contractors.
A big part of it, in our area, is that these are old homestead houses. Each house in our neighborhood sits on between 1-5 acres. There's about 100 acres with about 26 houses. We have NO Home Owners Association, and are one of the very few properties in the metroplex where that is a true statement. We used to have exemptions for agriculture, and small livestock, but they've taken those away as they've bulldozed the real farms and put in zero lot houses. The neighborhood behind us has 6 houses for every acre, where it used to be corn, coyotes and owls.
Developers would very much like this neighborhood, please. These old box houses could be bulldozed and turned into million dollar mcmansion properties, and the city is well aware of how that would impact their budget. I, perhaps in need of a tinfoil hat, believe they are taxing us out on purpose.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:30 PM on December 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
@vignettist: I don’t own a house in Texas anymore but, when I did, the property taxes were set by the taxing authorities not the assessor. There are two components of setting the property tax amount. The assessor established property values, supposedly based on recent sales. The taxing authorities set the millage rates (tax per $1000 of assessed value). In San Antonio and environs, there were multiple entities which taxed the house; the City or the county (depending on whether you lived in an incorporated area), the Bexar Co. Hospital District, the Northside Independent School District, the water and waste authorities, etc. The millage for each one varied and depended on the budget for that entity for the tax year. The actual tax bill had multiple lines, each with a different amount for each authority empowered by the state the levy property taxes.
I’m not sure what the total property taxes are in Marfa, but most rural counties have lower taxes than in SA or other large cities.
In Florida, we have a homestead exemption which exempts the first $50k of property value from tax - soon to go up to $75-100k. This significantly reduces the tax burden for less valuable properties while having a lesser effect on high valued properties. That is one approach to prevent taxing or pricing the working poor, retirees, and middle class out of their homes.
posted by sudogeek at 2:41 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I’m not sure what the total property taxes are in Marfa, but most rural counties have lower taxes than in SA or other large cities.
In Florida, we have a homestead exemption which exempts the first $50k of property value from tax - soon to go up to $75-100k. This significantly reduces the tax burden for less valuable properties while having a lesser effect on high valued properties. That is one approach to prevent taxing or pricing the working poor, retirees, and middle class out of their homes.
posted by sudogeek at 2:41 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
grumpybear69: "Prop 13 was an f-you-i-got-mine bill, nothing more, nothing less."
And while the face of it is some little old lady living in the house her husband built 70 years ago it applies to businesses as well. Prop 13 is a classic example of how there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
posted by Mitheral at 3:32 PM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
And while the face of it is some little old lady living in the house her husband built 70 years ago it applies to businesses as well. Prop 13 is a classic example of how there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
posted by Mitheral at 3:32 PM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ever since Prada opened up that store there...
posted by gucci mane at 3:35 PM on December 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 3:35 PM on December 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
@sudogeek, thank you. Overall that's pretty much how it works in CA too. Maybe it's just the writing style I'm taking issue with.
For those saying that the market value of your property doesn't matter... in CA, after the 2008 crash, Assessors all over the state were processing record number of "Decline-in-Value" appeals, asking for a (temporary) reduction in the assessed value of the home, to match whatever the current market values were. They had to be applied for on a year-by-year basis and, to my knowledge, were largely granted to the average property owner. Granted, I'm less familiar with that issue as it relates to commercial properties. It was a good relief for people who bought in '06, '07, and '08. Once the market value came back up, the base year value of the property (the year the property was purchased) was reinstated.
Hopefully that same protection exists in other states. So if the current market value of your property is suppressed for some reason, you should have the legal remedy of filing an appeal of the assessed value with the Assessor. In CA those forms are free to file, and usually someone at the office can walk you through it. It's worth asking the question at least.
posted by vignettist at 3:55 PM on December 23, 2018
For those saying that the market value of your property doesn't matter... in CA, after the 2008 crash, Assessors all over the state were processing record number of "Decline-in-Value" appeals, asking for a (temporary) reduction in the assessed value of the home, to match whatever the current market values were. They had to be applied for on a year-by-year basis and, to my knowledge, were largely granted to the average property owner. Granted, I'm less familiar with that issue as it relates to commercial properties. It was a good relief for people who bought in '06, '07, and '08. Once the market value came back up, the base year value of the property (the year the property was purchased) was reinstated.
Hopefully that same protection exists in other states. So if the current market value of your property is suppressed for some reason, you should have the legal remedy of filing an appeal of the assessed value with the Assessor. In CA those forms are free to file, and usually someone at the office can walk you through it. It's worth asking the question at least.
posted by vignettist at 3:55 PM on December 23, 2018
I had a Twitter argument a few months ago with someone who claimed that there was no such thing as rural gentrification and I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Does this count? I don’t know anything about the area except that the population of Marfa proper is tiny.
posted by stoneandstar at 9:01 PM on December 23, 2018
posted by stoneandstar at 9:01 PM on December 23, 2018
Hopefully that same protection exists in other states. So if the current market value of your property is suppressed for some reason, you should have the legal remedy of filing an appeal of the assessed value with the Assessor. In CA those forms are free to file, and usually someone at the office can walk you through it. It's worth asking the question at least.
In Texas, the actual sale price of real estate transactions is not recorded. If the house next door lists for $400k but sells for $300k, the assessor only sees the listed price, and my taxes just went up nearly $200/month. It's hard to appeal an assessment when all the data you need is secret.
posted by bradf at 10:28 PM on December 23, 2018
In Texas, the actual sale price of real estate transactions is not recorded. If the house next door lists for $400k but sells for $300k, the assessor only sees the listed price, and my taxes just went up nearly $200/month. It's hard to appeal an assessment when all the data you need is secret.
posted by bradf at 10:28 PM on December 23, 2018
It's illuminating to observe the sheer panic with which boomers and the preceding generations view the prospect of losing the living situations they were able to secure under the conditions in place decades ago, and being forced to find some way to live in the same housing market those of us who are younger have had to reckon with our entire lives.
posted by enn at 4:56 AM on December 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by enn at 4:56 AM on December 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Being from California, this is kind of hard to parse.
Yes, it is difficult to parse and really should have been explained to tell the whole story. In 2010, not too long after a bunch of these 'old timers' moved in, Marfa was facing serious financial struggles, as in they laid off their entire police force, most of their local employees, couldn't pay for their local infrastructure, and were essentially asking for 'state grants' to backstop the continued existence of the town. That's why the state stepped in and told them to raise their tax rates. And at $22k, you can see why that is true. $1000 a year in taxes (I'm assuming that is total for city and school ISD) for a .25 acre property isn't going to fund anything. Also, it sucks when your property increases in value, but really $100k is still affordable on a minimum wage job and they are banking huge amounts of appreciation, so it sucks sure, but if you want services, you have to pay for them.
Texas redistributes school tax dollars to underfunded districts? That is surprisingly progressive.
Sort of. Yes, funds are taken from 'property rich', where rich basically means the average property across the Independent School District (generally the city but not always) is greater than $200,000. Most of it is redistributed to poorer schools, but that 'most percent' is falling, and the rest is used to fund general state expenses. So the progressive tax of a school district, which is a separate tax from the city tax, has been weaponized so that the state doesn't have to raise taxes and gets to spend less state money on schools.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:32 AM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yes, it is difficult to parse and really should have been explained to tell the whole story. In 2010, not too long after a bunch of these 'old timers' moved in, Marfa was facing serious financial struggles, as in they laid off their entire police force, most of their local employees, couldn't pay for their local infrastructure, and were essentially asking for 'state grants' to backstop the continued existence of the town. That's why the state stepped in and told them to raise their tax rates. And at $22k, you can see why that is true. $1000 a year in taxes (I'm assuming that is total for city and school ISD) for a .25 acre property isn't going to fund anything. Also, it sucks when your property increases in value, but really $100k is still affordable on a minimum wage job and they are banking huge amounts of appreciation, so it sucks sure, but if you want services, you have to pay for them.
Texas redistributes school tax dollars to underfunded districts? That is surprisingly progressive.
Sort of. Yes, funds are taken from 'property rich', where rich basically means the average property across the Independent School District (generally the city but not always) is greater than $200,000. Most of it is redistributed to poorer schools, but that 'most percent' is falling, and the rest is used to fund general state expenses. So the progressive tax of a school district, which is a separate tax from the city tax, has been weaponized so that the state doesn't have to raise taxes and gets to spend less state money on schools.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:32 AM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Progressive and Texas are rarely on the same page. It’s worth noticing that the revenue sharing between richer and poorer school districts was the result of lawsuits filed against the state due to unequal educational spending. Ever since that settlement, the legislature has been gradually paring back the sharing, trying to find the absolute least amount it can get away with before the courts step back in.
posted by sudogeek at 1:06 PM on December 24, 2018
posted by sudogeek at 1:06 PM on December 24, 2018
Prop 13 was an f-you-i-got-mine bill, nothing more, nothing less. That it has had some positive effects for homeowners in wealthy areas like Berkely does not offset the ravaging of CA public education or the role it has had in rapidly inflating home prices in desirable areas.
Sure... that it has some positive effects for homeowners in poor areas doesn't count?
Look, it was a popular and an easy sell that appealed to more than just wealthy people. Examples like what is happening in Marfa made it easy. You can deny it all you want, but that's the way it was.
But that wasn't really what Prop 13 was about.
What it was "really about" is neither here nor there. What it actually does is the point. And in this instance the point I made is that its effect is good for the very people I mentioned, and would benefit any homeowner in a gentrifying neighborhood from a spike in property taxes. Most significantly low/fixed income homeowners who are least able to afford the spike.
A simple alternative solution would have been to allow low income homeowners to postpone their taxes if they could not afford them, but establishing a lien against the ultimate sale of their home. Since homes were doubling and tripling in value, paying their back taxes when sold would have been no burden.
I'm not sure this is any more reasonable. It does sound like a way to screw low income homeowners for having the gall to cash out on their homes. Fuck them for treating their homes like an unforseen windfall, right?
Look, you all hate Prop 13. Yeah, it totally twisted up the way revenue streams and incentives are done in CA. But if you're going to deny that it has an upside, in this instance, for low income homeowners to stay in a place where they might otherwise no longer afford, or heaven forbid, make a profit, then I'm calling bullshit.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:20 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sure... that it has some positive effects for homeowners in poor areas doesn't count?
Look, it was a popular and an easy sell that appealed to more than just wealthy people. Examples like what is happening in Marfa made it easy. You can deny it all you want, but that's the way it was.
But that wasn't really what Prop 13 was about.
What it was "really about" is neither here nor there. What it actually does is the point. And in this instance the point I made is that its effect is good for the very people I mentioned, and would benefit any homeowner in a gentrifying neighborhood from a spike in property taxes. Most significantly low/fixed income homeowners who are least able to afford the spike.
A simple alternative solution would have been to allow low income homeowners to postpone their taxes if they could not afford them, but establishing a lien against the ultimate sale of their home. Since homes were doubling and tripling in value, paying their back taxes when sold would have been no burden.
I'm not sure this is any more reasonable. It does sound like a way to screw low income homeowners for having the gall to cash out on their homes. Fuck them for treating their homes like an unforseen windfall, right?
Look, you all hate Prop 13. Yeah, it totally twisted up the way revenue streams and incentives are done in CA. But if you're going to deny that it has an upside, in this instance, for low income homeowners to stay in a place where they might otherwise no longer afford, or heaven forbid, make a profit, then I'm calling bullshit.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:20 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
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*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 8:11 AM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]