A Possible Common-Sense Tax Incentive

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Before I share my specific recommendations, I want to acknowledge upfront that housing affordability is one of the most complex and difficult challenges our community faces. It touches the lives of so many residents — from young families and working professionals to seniors on fixed incomes. In developing solutions, my top priority is to protect our fiscal health and ensure we do not increase the city’s deficit or reduce the quality of essential services you rely on.

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California’s tenant-friendly laws and heavy regulations have made it very difficult for small “mom and pop” landlords to stay in the rental business. As a result, large corporations and hedge funds are buying up more and more residential properties. This is hurting working families and pricing Long Beach residents out of the market.

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To help reverse this trend and encourage local ownership, I am proposing a Long Beach Resident Primary Home Tax Credit.

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How the Program Would Work:

- If a seller sells their property to a Long Beach resident pr first-time homebuyers who will use it as their primary residence, the buyer would receive a temporary property tax credit.

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- This credit would apply only to the tax increase caused by reassessment after the sale.

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- The credit would be limited to 3 to 5 years.

Potential Pros and Cons of This Tax Credit:

Pros:

- Encourages Long Beach residents/ first-time buyers to keep them as primary residences instead of allowing outside investors to dominate the market.

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- Helps working families and local buyers compete against cash-heavy corporate buyers.

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- Promotes neighborhood stability by keeping local families in Long Beach.

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Costs far less than building new subsidized housing.

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Cons:

- It would reduce city property tax revenue, at least in the short term.

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We must carefully limit this to avoid increasing our $60–80 million structural deficit.

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- Could be complicated to administer and verify that buyers are truly using the home as their primary residence.

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Strict Parameters to Protect City Revenue:

-;Limited to first-time Long Beach homebuyers only.

Maximum tax credit of 30 - 40% of the reassessment increase for the first 3 to 5 years, depending on its fiscal impact.

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- Buyer must live in the home as their primary residence for the full 3 - 5 years or repay a portion of the credit.

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- Annual cost to the city would be strictly capped so it does not worsen our current deficit.

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Real Effect on Homebuyers:

For the average working family in Long Beach, this could mean saving $1,000 to hopefully a $5,000 per year in property taxes for the first five years after buying a home. That is real money back in residents pockets that could help with mortgage payments or other living expenses.

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This is not a handout. It is a targeted, temporary tax credit designed to help local residents compete in the housing market while protecting the city’s bottom line.

I believe we need less heavy-handed government intervention and more smart, limited incentives that actually help Long Beach families stay in the city they love.

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Joshua Rodriguez,

Candidate for Mayor of Long Beach

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Supporting Sources:

CalMatters: “California housing: The impact of corporate landlords” – https://calmatters.org/.../institutional-investors.../...

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NPR / Planet Money: “Here's what happens when private equity buys homes in your neighborhood” – https://www.npr.org/.../private-equity-corporate...

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The Guardian: “A fifth of California homes are investor-owned as state's affordability crisis worsens” – https://www.theguardian.com/.../california-investor-owned...

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California State Board of Equalization: Homeowners’ Exemption and related property tax relief programs – https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/homeowners_exemption.htm