Home sales are slowing down across the Bay Area, which is having an impact on a group which has nothing to do with the process: kids attending public schools.
“Property transfers, what we call transfers or changes in ownership, are way down,” said Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone.
The country makes money when a home or commercial real estate are sold. That means, as markets dry up, the county’s tax revenue has dropped by an estimated $4.7 billion.
“If I was going to define it,” said Caroline Chen, a professor of business at San Jose State University, “I think I’d call it a symptom of inflation.”
That inflation has caused mortgage rates to shoot up above 8%, leading to the housing market slowdown.
The loss is hurting county coffers as well as the programs that rely on county money.
“Who gets hurt?” Stone said. “Primarily schools. 50% of all property tax revenue goes to K-12 or community colleges.”
Chen pointed to a variety of ways that'll have an effect.
“Lunch programs, all the cost of the food is gonna go up. And they could possibly be passing along the cost of that to parents, right? If you wanna engage in the lunch program,” she said. “What about the pencils, the pens, the paper? I’m sure all of that has increased in price.”
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