SANTA FE, N.M. — Voters are choosing whether to tax estates to pay for economical realestate efforts in a state capital city valued for its desert-mountain vistas, dynamic arts scene and stucco architecture rooted in Native American and Spanish-colonial custom.
The tax on homes offered for more than $1 million is being pitched as a lifeline to instructors, service-sector employees, single momsanddads and young specialists who can’t payfor regional homemortgages or battle to pay lease amidst a nationwide realestate scarcity and the arrival in Santa Fe of high-income digital wanderers and wealthy retiredpeople.
The Nov. 7 tally procedure is the mostcurrent bellwether for the appeal of so-called estate taxes to fund budget-friendly realestate and stave off homelessness. It comes on the heels of a voter-approved effort in Los Angeles and brand-new propositions from Chicago to Massachusetts.
If authorized, the step would include a 3% tax on domestic home sales of $1 million or more — with no tax on the veryfirst $1 million in worth.
On a $1.2 million home sale, for example, the brand-new tax would use to $200,000 in worth. The purchaser would pay $6,000 to the city’s budgetfriendly realestate trust fund.
The city approximates that the tax would create about $6 million eachyear for the trust, which finances price-restricted realestate, down-payment help for low-income propertybuyers and leasing help to stave off monetary difficulty and expulsions.
The trust awards funds each year to costeffective realestate companies who can safeandsecure matching funds from other federalgovernment and not-for-profit sources, described Alexandra Ladd, director of Santa Fe’s economical realestate workplace.
But Santa Fe citizens have shied away from popular tax efforts in the previous, turningdown a proposed comparable 1% tax on high-end home sales in 2009 and beating a tax on sweet beverages to broaden early youth education in 2017.
Second-term Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber, a Democrat, supports the tax and states skyrocketing realestate expenses are threatening the “heart and soul” of the city.
“We’re drawingin folks who can Zoom to work somewhereelse and live in an exceptional