A lot of horse farms up that way. Horse farms mean money. Money means no-like taxes.

I'm not.

As a Gloucester native born and bred, I've watched my local population become more and more like the Rockport "I got mine, now fuck all of you"

It sucks when your history, your family, your friends, and your job are all in a town you now have to leave at 40 years old because you've been priced out.

For the record, fuck gentrification.

Nah, between Ipswich, Topsfield, Middleton, Newburyport and Amersbury, ect. I'm not surprised at all. Plus gentrification has been coming strong for the North shore.

Massachusetts. Where you’re punished for being successful. That’s coming from someone who isn’t remotely close to being a millionaire.

Hell yeah brother. Fuck the fact that people making over a million now need to pay their fair share in taxes.

Yup, many generations and a long history in Gloucester and Beverly. I was the last of my family to leave because I could not afford to live in my hometown and MA in general.

Fair enough, I thought the Merrimac valley would even it out. I hate how much this area is changing but it’s the same across the state

This is one of the most affluent counties in MA!

Same rate as the state average?

Yah as soon as people start having houses with >$1m in appreciation they start thinking this tax will kill them.

(How dare the state fund public expenditure by raising the taxes on the sale of my $1,400,000 home, which I purchased 25 years ago for $300,000, by $4,000! Do you know how much bananas cost, Michael?)

Yeah the whole coast from Beverly up to NH is $5-$45 million dollar houses, this isn't surprising at all.

I guess I didn’t realize? I’m in the Haverhill area, it doesn’t look so great from here.

Opposite

Saugus is a red town for some unknown reason. It’s mainly working class people.

I always wondered how Essex county got the stereotype of being the richies of MA, meanwhile Newton, Sudbury, Weston, Dover, Concord, Carlisle, Wayland, Wellesley, Needham, and company are all out there in Middlesex 🤔

Did my part, though I spent my first 30 years of life in Boston.

It's only a slight shift from other counties, but you just need a few greedy and/or not very smart people to sway the results.

Saugus was a sundown town and a lot of that legacy still lives on. People there collectively flipped their shit at the idea of changing their racist mascot because "heritage" even though nobody in town has ever even met a Native person.

If you look at the Globe map (paywall), it goes by town. The coastal North Shore was pretty behind it, Rowley, Newbury (not Newburyport), Salisbury, and Marblehead being exceptions. Seems the interior suburbs, like Danvers, Peabody, and Saugus, are where the real millionaires live.

We're talking about a 4% increase only on the dollars over a million. So if you made $2 million, $40,000 more. Overall a 2% increase in that example.

The quality of life difference those dollars make at that level is negligible.

If you want to bitch about taxes, let's start with the gas tax.

it was the Gold Coast https://coastalbyway.org/communities/beverly/gold-coast/

Last I checked, 4% increase on a 5% tax is an 80% increase.

It’s gentrified and full of the type of upper middle class liberals with BLM and “in this house” signs that call the cops if they see a Hispanic person and vote against any sort of housing.

These people would do some pretty extreme things to keep their housing prices up, their kids on track for Harvard and their job remote

Why are people in this thread talking like wealthier areas are more likely to vote no? Middlesex county voted yes (2nd in per capita income), and Bristol county voted no (2nd to last in per capita income).

Lots of people vote according to their politics, not their self interest.

Just a reminder that the Merrimac Valley is part of Essex county and we are full of Hispanics…actually, come to think of it Hispanics statistically vote conservative so that might be my answer.

Thanks, my husband is from Middlesex county and it’s a lot richer imo. But I’m nearing 40, so I remember when Ipswich and Rowley were farms and poor folk and Newburyport was livable at the poverty line. It’s just always seemed very liberal to me here.

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I could be completely wrong, but I believe it’s only $4k. The tax is only on anything OVER a million, so $400,000 * .01 = $4,000.

Only on the appreciation after write offs. It appreciated by $1,400,000 - $300,000 = $1,100,000. Then you get to write off at least $250,000, so you're only taxed on at most $850,000 and the law doesn't even apply to you. (Unless you make more than $150,000 some other way. So in order to even hit that $4k in taxes you'd need to have a salary of $550k in addition to all this, or more if you're married.)

Dang thanks for that reminder/clarification, you’re totally right

On Cape we know all about house price appreciation... unfortunately...

While I adore Haverhill, even here they voted 52-48 against. Make no sense, none of our homes will ever get to that level of appreciation.

LOL they were rich people places then too

I mean, we weren’t. My family has been in Rowley since it was founded. I guess it’s just confirmation bias 🤷‍♀️

There are probably 7-10 towns in Essex county wealthier than the towns you listed.

Andover, N. Andover and West Boxford are some of the wealthiest parts of the state.

Wasn't just about wealth

Or they’ll just leave. And the state won’t attract other wealthy individuals. It was a lazy law made to make average people feel warm and fuzzy. I’m fine with a progressive tax rate. Increasing the amount taxed over a million by 80% was dumb and will hurt the state in the long run.