Another sports team eyeing public funds for a new stadium, property tax relief comes to Texas, and a social media influencer who gave very bad advice. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of June 16-20.
Miss: Who’s Going to Pay for This? If you’re a regular reader of this news site, you may recall we’ve run many stories about professional sports teams that want to build stadiums that would be partially funded with taxpayer money. There may be another team seeking to go that route – the USL Women’s Super League champion Tampa Bay Sun unveiled a plan for a 15,000-seat stadium in developer David Shaw’s 33-acre project in Tampa’s Ybor City. The Sun plays at Riverfront Stadium on the campus of Howard W. Blake High School near downtown Tampa, and Shaw announced the plan by declaring how “we’re investing in our city’s future and honoring the community that makes it thrive.” However, Shaw conveniently omitted information on how much this project would cost and whether public funding will go into this project – and not citing those important details raises a red card. Let’s hope that he can go the route of another soccer team, the Chicago Fire – they’re is building a new stadium entirely with their own funds.
Hit: A Texas Tax Break. Another issue that has generated a great deal of coverage on this news site involves property tax relief. This week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed several bills related to this focus, including one that raises the homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000, another that would raise the exemption to $200,000 for residents who have disabilities or those who are 65 and older, and a third that increases the business personal property tax exemption from $2,500 to $125,000. In November, Texas voters will have the vote on constitutional amendments that will ensure these relief efforts are a permanent part of the state’s law. Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) may have said it best: “No country, no state, no city, and no county can tax and spend their way into prosperity. That is why it is so important that we make sure that we have a low-tax state.”
Miss: Indefinitely Unavailable. A new survey published by Redfin has found one-third (33.5%) of baby boomers who own their home declaring that they’ll never sell their property, while another 30% say they will eventually sell their home but not within the next decade. Older homeowners were less likely to sell, with nearly half (44.6%) of Silent Generation members declaring they would never list their residences. On the flip side, only 25% of Gen Xers and 21% of millennial/Gen Zers vowed that they’ll never sell. Of course, these homeowners have every right to remain in their homes. Still, this represents a considerable chunk of properties that will be kept off the market.
Miss: Don’t Believe Everything You See Online. Tyler Bossetti, a social media influencer who provided financial advice to over a million followers, pleaded guilty this week to wire fraud and aiding in a false tax filing in connection to defrauding investors out of more than $11 million. Bossetti positioned himself as the ultimate Mr. Know-it-All when it came to property flipping, but his real talent was for chicanery – he received more than $20 million in investments between September 2019 and June 2023 but used most of the money on personal luxury expenses and unsuccessful cryptocurrency investments. He attempted to camouflage his losses by using the traditional Ponzi Scheme trick of paying back his earlier investors with funds from new investors, but that didn’t work out for him. Perhaps social media sites should borrow the warning label approach used on cigarette packaging, maybe along the lines of “Warning: Putting your faith and funds into online influencers can be dangerous to your financial health.”
Hit: Return Engagement, Part 1. Kudos to venture capitalist Neil Mehta, who announced plans to restore and reopen San Francisco’s historic Clay Theater. The 112-year-old venue has been closed since early 2020, and upon its full renovation Mehta seeks to host more than 500 screenings annually at the 200-seat theater, with filmmaker talks and presentations of classic films. Ted Gerike, founder of the Los Angeles cinema and bookstore Now Instant Image Hall, was hired as the theater’s creative director. Mehta did not provide a timeline on when the theater will be operating again, but this initiative will certainly provide a major boost to San Francisco’s economy and cultural scene as the city works to regain its footing after years of mismanagement resulted in a frayed quality of life and an exodus of businesses and residents.
Miss: Return Engagement, Part 2. Earlier this week, police in Aurora, Colorado, released a video of nine suspected members of Venezuela’s notorious Tren de Aragua gang creating chaos at a local complex. The gang made their unwelcome presence felt last year and knowing that they are still active in Aurora is the worst possible news for the city. The New York Post reports that Police Chief Todd Chamberlain is determined to get rid of them once and for all. “I look at these individuals like a cancer,” he said. “Not a benign cancer — they are a cancer that is causing victimization, they are a cancer that must be addressed, they must be cut out and they must be stopped.”
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo: Milehightraveler / Getty Images
