OscarNet

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

HOA surveillance cameras secretly installed for ‘neighborhood security’ draw backlash, kill home sales

Big brother is watching your open house.

Homeowners associations across the country are quietly signing up for Flock Safety’s license plate cameras, and the backlash is now strong enough to blow up home sales, kill signed contracts and land cities in court, with New York at the center of the fight.

Nowhere is the backlash more raw than in the Adirondacks, where the fight has already toppled a signed contract and sparked open revolt inside a gated community.

In Saranac Lake, a resident living behind a gate who protested the cameras in his own neighborhood said the issue isn’t security itself. It’s who gets to look.

“The problem I have is not with security cameras. It’s with the Flock system directly. Anyone and their mother can have easy access to this database. The way the data is readily being shared. It is completely unconstitutional,” he told The Post.

Residents said they’d learned about the rollout only after cameras started going up on telephone poles around town.

“These cameras are not going to keep us safe,” resident Sandra Kalinowski told the board, drawing applause from the crowd.

Another resident, David Lynch, pushed the board to reverse course entirely.

“First I believe these cameras are currently in violation of Saranac Lake Police Department policy. Secondly, I believe the public has been misled about Flock’s access to our data. My ask of you tonight is to take these cameras down. The village is conducting surveillance in violation of its own policy,” he said.

The board caved. Trustees voted 4-1 to kill the Flock contract outright and swore off ever signing with the company again, a stunning reversal for a deal that had already been in place for months.

Trustee Aurora White, who pushed the toughest language in the resolution, said the village had no business holding onto the kind of data Flock’s system generates.

“We don’t have the expertise to be proper stewards of this data,” she said.

It’s not just a small mountain town. Communities across New York are colliding with the same technology, and the fights are getting uglier.

In Newburgh, a city council push to rip out Flock cameras entirely failed to get enough votes this week, leaving residents furious and officials divided. Councilman Omari Shakur, who led the failed push, didn’t hide his frustration with the holdup.

“We’ve been talking about this for three months, that’s discussing what we worked on,” he said last week during the failed vote.

In Troy, the standoff escalated into a courtroom fight. After the city council refused to fund its Flock contract, the mayor declared a state of emergency, and the council responded by suing over that move. The dispute now centers on a basic question, how long a city should be allowed to hold onto footage of its own residents driving down the street.

Residents of Troy have since been vandalizing Flock cameras throughout the town in recent months.

New York isn’t alone in seeing this spill into court. In Huntington, West Virginia, a resident sued the city days after officials approved a $2.1 million Flock contract behind closed doors, following a marathon council meeting where more than 50 people spoke out against the technology and protesters circled City Hall.

Aubrey Sparks, legal director of the ACLU of West Virginia, argued the deal shouldn’t have gone through in the first place.

“The legal issues with this contract are numerous, but we are starting with how it was awarded in the first place. Simply put, the city acted hastily and did not follow its own laws when approving this contract, so it should be considered null and void from the start,” Sparks said.

Her colleague, ACLU-WV executive director Eli Baumwell, went further, accusing city officials of working around their own constituents.

“As other towns and cities are waking up to the egregious abuses of this technology, Huntington officials worked behind closed doors for months to thwart the will of their constituents and push this invasive surveillance on the city. We will not stand by while the city runs roughshod over the will of the people and the privacy rights of every person in Huntington,” Baumwell said.

The cameras themselves are simple. Solar powered and bolted onto poles at entrances, exits and other high traffic spots, they photograph every passing vehicle and run the plate through image recognition software, logging the make, model, color and any distinguishing features along with a timestamp. That data feeds into a searchable, cloud-based system that flags vehicles tied to a “hot list,” things like stolen cars or plates linked to a police investigation.

HOAs typically own their own footage, but once a board opts into data sharing, the same records can become visible to thousands of law enforcement agencies nationwide, not just the local department that installed the cameras. Retention windows vary by contract, often 30 days or more, and critics say oversight of who actually searches that data is thin to nonexistent.

That lack of oversight is exactly what set off residents in Saranac Lake, where critics argued access to the system stretched well beyond police.

Placement has become its own flashpoint. Flock markets the cameras as a license plate tool for roads and entrances, but residents have pointed out the cameras keep turning up somewhere else entirely, aimed at swimming pools, parks and courts where no car could ever pass. If the only job is reading plates on moving vehicles, that raises an obvious question about why a lens would be pointed at a pool deck instead of a driveway.

For homebuyers, none of this is abstract anymore. More than 200 homeowners associations nationwide have signed on with Flock, often funded straight out of resident dues and frequently without ever putting it to a vote. Boards pitch the cameras as neighborhood security. Buyers increasingly see them as a liability baked into the price of the house, one more line item to weigh alongside the roof and the HVAC.

A wave of buyers nationwide are pulling up crowdsourced surveillance maps before they’ll even walk through a listing, and what they’re finding at HOA-run communities is turning would-be sales into no-shows.

The clearest example ricocheted across social media after a broker, posting in a Reddit forum for real estate agents, described watching a deal fall apart in real time.

“Just had a buyer cancel a showing because HOA has Flock cameras at both entrances, including one by the pool,” the broker wrote.

The post exploded well past its intended audience.

“Yes, this is true. I’m the broker. I scheduled a showing and buyers cancelled because they brought this to my attention,” the broker wrote in an edit. “I was originally asking Realtors (In a sub for Realtors) if they have experienced this. I was not anticipating 500 comments from non agents. But thank you for your input.”

Standard HOA disclosure paperwork almost never mentions surveillance contracts at all, leaving buyers to do their own digging on crowdsourced tools like DeFlock before they’ll even book a tour.

https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/real-estate/hoa-surveillance-cameras-draw-backlash-and-kill-home-sales/

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Affordability crisis ups bids for abandoned homes in beleaguered Baltimore, cuts vacancies in turnaround

Long-blighted Baltimore has a blooming new future in store.

Thousands of vacant homes within the city, which for years stood as eyesores and scared investors away, are now seeing a stunning moment in the spotlight thanks to big buyer demand and bidding wars, the Wall Street Journal reports. And while not every city neighborhood is seeing such success, the activity is helping Baltimore see a notable vacancy reduction — nearly a third — over the last decade.

Not only are the city and Maryland showering Baltimore with billions of dollars in funding, but nonprofits are also rehabbing full blocks at once — all while violent crime makes historic drops.

Still, the languishing affordability crisis is making Americans in pricier cities have a look at Baltimore. It doesn’t hurt that the city’s median sale price is $235,333, according to Zillow data, well below the $381,333 national median.

Alex Queen, a Baltimore native, left Los Angeles after repeatedly losing out on California homes in bidding wars. She and her family ultimately bought a vacant property that had been rehabbed by Parity Homes, a nonprofit developer.

Similarly, Alex Kovach and Ella Miller purchased a home in East Baltimore’s Johnston Square, where a nonprofit developer, ReBUILD Metro, has made big strides reducing the sum of vacant properties. It’s close to downtown Baltimore and transportation options.

“Johnston Square is at the perfect location,” Kovach told the Journal.

Buyers like these are helping the city mark massive milestones. For many years, the city saw vacant homes hit a stagnant high of 16,000. That number has since lowered to less than 12,000.

“Vacant housing was everywhere,” Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, told the Journal. “When people see a bunch of vacants, no one wants to live there. No one wants to invest there.”

The recent activity traces its origins to the COVID years, when low interest rates lured in buyers, helping prices grow and renovations become more doable. Then people from pricier areas, namely Washington, DC, began eyeing Baltimore as a more affordable alternative.

Now, more than ever, investors are swooping in. Plumber and part-time investor Chris Waldron had to raise his auction bid to $45,000 for a vacant property with boarded-up windows and a peeling facade — after competitors doubled what he wanted to shell out.

“What did I get myself into?” Waldron told the outlet of his thoughts when he visited the property after winning the sale. But then he figured out his plan — flush it with $130,000 for a five-month renovation before selling it for more than $300,000.

Not every neighborhood benefits currently. For instance, Carrollton Ridge — home to some of the worst homicide rates in Baltimore — has 750 vacant homes, 40 more than it had a decade ago.

Elsewhere, the change is hard to believe, locals said. In Johnston Square, the purchase activity has made a community garden replace a drug market, while formerly vacant blocks are now home to families.

“There was nothing but rows and rows of boarded-up houses,” longtime neighborhood resident Regina Hammond told the Journal. “Now it’s a whole different story.”

https://nypost.com/2026/08/18/real-estate/affordability-crisis-fuels-bidding-wars-in-baltimore/

Monday, August 17, 2026

Return of the Property Tax Revolt

Americans have a reputation for disliking taxes, especially those they pay directly. Few are as consistently unpopular as property taxes. That discontent has fueled reform movements in a dozen states. In 2026, voters in Florida, North Carolina, and Oklahoma are considering exemptions or property tax limits, while lawmakers in Indiana, Montana, and Texas have debated deeper reductions or outright abolition. The revolt, much like the tax revolts of the 1970s, is driven by high inflation shrinking the dollar’s purchasing power as well as rising home values, and tax bills that often outpace household incomes.

Today’s revolt reflects a breakdown in the relationship between what taxpayers pay and what they believe they receive. While the past tax revolts saw brief success, governments quickly found workarounds to continue growing government. Simply abolishing or capping one tax does not guarantee that government will shrink.

Unless reforms restrain spending and scope of authority, taxpayers will still pay through higher taxes, transfers from federal and state governments, fees, or debt. Lasting relief, therefore, requires a set of binding rules that “starves the beast” of both revenue and responsibility.

The Tax Revolts of the 1970s

As the tax revolt spread across the country in the 1970s, California became its most prominent battleground. The movement had been building in the Golden State since the 1960s, when voters increasingly rejected local school levies and bond measures they considered burdensome, unpredictable, and unfair. California’s ballot initiatives of 1978 and 1979 marked the tax revolt’s high point.

In June 1978, voters approved Proposition 13, adding Article XIII A to the state constitution, which cut property-tax payments by roughly 60 percent, capped the basic property-tax rate at 1 percent, and limited annual assessment value growth.

Voters tried to close the gap a year later by adding Article XIII B, or the Gann Limit. The Gann Limit tied appropriations growth to population growth and cost of living and required excess revenue to be refunded. For a time, the combination mattered: California rebated $1.1 billion in excess revenue for fiscal year 1986–87.

Later initiatives weakened the spending constraint. Propositions 98 and 111 redirected excess revenue, widened the room under the limit, and expanded exemptions to the limit. By the mid-1990s, Prop 13 still limited property taxes, but the Gann Limit rarely forced lawmakers to choose between lower spending and taxpayer rebates.

California’s experience highlights the rules’ central weakness: they constrained specified taxes and appropriations while leaving other revenue, spending, and borrowing relatively unchecked.

Governments adapted through an expansion of “off-budget enterprises” (OBEs) such as road, airport, water, and sewer authorities. Often financed through revenue bonds that did not require voter approval, these entities could create patronage and obscure liabilities outside the ordinary budget. Their employees, contractors, and beneficiaries had concentrated incentives to defend them, while the cost of subsidies or bailouts was dispersed across taxpayers. Additionally, governments can use laws and regulations to mandate that these entities charge assessments or fees that serve as a workaround to tax caps.

State and local governments also grew more dependent on federal transfers since the 1990s. Such aid separates the government that spends from the government that taxes, weakening voters’ ability to connect services with costs. Because federal money and OBEs fell outside tax and expenditure limits, government could reproduce a restricted burden through transfers, compulsory charges, special entities, or debt. A fiscal rule’s effectiveness, therefore, depends on the scope of authority it constrains.

The Reason for Fiscal Rules

The lesson from the 1970s tax revolts is that governments respond to the incentives created by fiscal rules and exploit the choices the rules leave open. A restriction applying to only one tax or section of the budget may provide relief while redirecting fiscal activity elsewhere.

Conventional public finance assumes that government must collect a given amount and asks which tax can raise it most efficiently. Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan ask a prior question: What taxing and borrowing powers would citizens choose to give government if officials could use those powers to pursue their own political objectives?

The whack-a-mole problem is exactly what Brennan and Buchanan’s framework is meant to expose. If one fiscal tool is limited while the others remain open, officials can readily turn to alternatives. This is demonstrated in their model of a “revenue-maximizing Leviathan.” Without any constitutional rules constraining government, those public officials operating “Leviathan” will happily take as much tax revenue as possible for their own discretionary ends. Additionally, a poorly-written rule enables public officials to find loopholes that allow them to maximize revenue. Rules designed only for benevolent officials serve little purpose. Sound rules must also protect citizens when politicians, bureaucracies, and organized interests seek to expand their command over public resources.

Property taxes are central to this substitution problem because they are unusually attractive to governments and creditors. Real property is immobile, comparatively easy to identify, and difficult to conceal. These characteristics can reduce economic distortions and give local governments stable revenue but can also give government considerable power over taxpayers who cannot easily move their homes or reverse investments made under earlier fiscal expectations. The same tax base that appears inelastic can also appear easily exploitable.

The municipal bond market shows how the tax and borrowing sides of the problem connect. Some investors warn that property taxes could weaken local credit, increase revenue volatility, and raise borrowing costs. Higher borrowing costs following reform may thus represent both a genuine burden and a measure of fiscal discipline.

From the bondholder’s perspective, the property tax is valuable because it’s stable, difficult to avoid, and supported by an immobile base. From the taxpayer’s perspective, those same characteristics make it an unusually powerful instrument for fiscal extraction. The revenue source that appears the most efficient under a fixed-revenue assumption may also give a revenue-seeking government the greatest capacity to tax and borrow. In other words, capping a tax without also constraining spending and scope of authority pushes fiscal pressure into state aid, fees, authorities, or new debt. The bill changes, but the burden does not.

Brennan and Buchanan further distinguish political outcomes from the rules that produce them. Proposition 13 delivered substantial property-tax relief, but it was only a partial fiscal constitution. Its history shows that reformers must evaluate a rule according to the behavior it predictably encourages, including activity likely to migrate beyond its boundaries.

A Fiscal Constitution for Property Tax Reform

Today’s reformers should therefore look beyond the amount removed from the homeowner’s first bill. The relevant question is whether new rules reduce government’s total claim on taxpayers while making the remaining burden more predictable and accountable. Economist Vance Ginn offers some workable solutions.

First, property tax limits should be paired with a limit on total spending or revenue. Otherwise, local governments may replace lost collections with other taxes, state aid, compulsory charges, or borrowing. A workable limit could allow growth with inflation and population while requiring voter approval for amounts above that ceiling. Emergency overrides should be narrow, temporary, and subject to automatic expiration.

The property tax rule itself should restrain levies and assessments. When assessed values rise faster than the permitted levy, tax rates should automatically fall. New construction can be treated separately to finance the cost of genuine growth. This offers relief without reproducing Proposition 13’s acquisition-value system, under which similar properties can face dramatically different tax burdens based on purchase date.

Second, the rule’s perimeter must extend beyond the ordinary budget. Special districts, public authorities, dedicated funds, public-private partnerships, lease obligations, and recurring subsidies should appear in a consolidated fiscal report. Debt repaid from taxes or compulsory charges should face approval and disclosure requirements comparable to general obligation debt. New debt service should not become an unlimited exemption from the spending limit.

Third, local governments should raise a meaningful share of what they spend. Permanent state backfills weaken the connection between the officials who authorize services and the taxpayers who finance them. State transfers may remain necessary to address differences in local tax capacity, but its formula should not automatically preserve every locality’s previous spending level. Otherwise, state officials collect the money while local officials continue spending it.

Fourth, reform must distinguish a genuine user fee from a disguised tax. A fee should finance an identifiable service, reasonably reflect its costs, and be dedicated to that purpose. A compulsory charge financing general government should be treated as a tax regardless of its label. Revenue bonds for a self-supporting water system are different from bonds supported by recurring tax subsidies or implicit bailout guarantees.

Finally, reform should be prospective and gradual. Existing covenants and pledged revenues should be honored, with a clear timetable for future changes. Abrupt abolition could destabilize local credit and make legitimate capital projects unnecessarily expensive. Protecting existing creditors, however, does not require unlimited borrowing authority forever.

Brennan and Buchanan’s contractarian approach supplies a final test: Would citizens accept these rules before knowing whether they would use many or few local services, whether they would hold municipal bonds, whether they would be homeowners or renters, or residents of growing or declining communities? Rules passing that test are more likely to be general, durable, and resistant to manipulation.

Eliminate the Burden, Not Just the Bill

Property taxes are politically vulnerable because taxpayers can see them. The annual bill places the cost of local government in front of the homeowner in a way that withholding, state transfers, debt, and embedded charges often do not. Reformers should not mistake making the bill disappear for making government less costly.

The earlier tax revolt demonstrated that citizens could impose meaningful limits on government. It also showed that governments will reorganize their finances around whatever choices remain.

The new property tax revolt’s success should, therefore, be measured by whether the total burden becomes smaller, more predictable, more visible, and more closely connected to the government spending the money. The goal should be to prevent government from recreating that tax under another name.

Thomas Savidge is a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.

https://lawliberty.org/return-of-the-property-tax-revolt/

Is Miami really costlier than New York City? Why top developers say the math still favors Florida

While recent economic data suggests South Florida has lost its cost advantage over New York, top real estate developers argue the numbers fail to tell the full story.

Key executives behind major residential skyscrapers in Manhattan and Miami argue South Florida is playing long-overdue catch-up after decades of underpriced real estate, while still offering buyers significantly more long-term value.

"Miami has earned a seat as one of the greatest cities in the world," Naftali Group EVP of marketing, sales and design Danielle Naftali told Fox News Digital. "As people have migrated down here, [and] made it a location that people are living permanently, obviously, things have become a bit more expensive… world-class restaurants opening here, the most amazing cultural institutions, entertainment, hospitality groups — everything that people really experience in major cities around the world. And, you know, those truly go hand in hand."

"Globally, Miami was playing catch-up to New York for long periods of time, and you can do this by price per square foot, you can do it by total dollars, what they sell for, but Miami used to trade at — as a local myself — I almost thought it was weird how inexpensive the real estate was here comparatively to cities like New York or London or LA," PMG Managing Partner Ryan Shear also told Fox Digital.

"A lot of people have moved down here, not just people, but companies and a lot of high-profile people, and you're seeing big headlines about big trades and big sales and that's true and that is great for the city. I don't think it tells the whole story. I think Miami is still a value city," he added. "I still think it’s a bargain play down here."

A view of Miami's skyline and Biscayne Bay. (Getty Images)

A recent Bloomberg analysis of U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data found that the overall cost of living in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area has surpassed that of greater New York. The analysis separately found that housing costs in South Florida are roughly 5% higher than in New York and its suburbs. Additionally, consumer prices in South Florida have risen 36% since 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, representing the second-highest inflation surge among major American markets, trailing only Tampa.

South Florida home prices have jumped 79% since the pandemic, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data, while Florida's average annual homeowner's insurance premium stands at $8,292, roughly four times the average in New York state, according to Insurify.

"There's definitely a price gap that has changed. But what we see ultimately is that buyers are less sensitive to the price per square foot as the buyers have become more sophisticated," Naftali countered. "We see our buyers thinking about everything from lifestyle, services and amenities, finished palettes, and really the best quality. So this is something that people are really willing to pay that premium."

"Anyone that's buying in our development today will be able to see their appreciation over the next five to ten years," she said.

Beyond homebuyer costs, developers also face nationwide borrowing and insurance pressures. However, Shear emphasized that constructing a high-rise in Florida remains vastly more accessible than doing so in New York.

"It is still less expensive to build in Florida than New York. And not by a little, by like a decent, significant amount," Shear said. "Debt in Florida is the same as debt in Texas... Banks lend nationally and globally. So it's still affordable to build in Florida."

"Everything's relative. You know, we're relative to the world we live in. So, relative is South Florida trading at faster paces, absorption greater than what we see in a lot of markets… It's not a Miami thing. I think Florida in general is having a very good moment. And it's been going on for a while, and I don't think it's stopping," Shear said.

The Manhattan skyline is seen at sunrise from the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building on April 3, 2021, in New York City. (Getty Images)

Florida remains one of nine U.S. states with no individual income tax, whereas top earners in New York City face combined state and local income tax rates of nearly 14.8%. ATTOM data show Miami-area property taxes have jumped 62% since 2019. Florida voters, meanwhile, will consider a constitutional amendment in November that would exempt the first $250,000 of a homestead's value from property taxes other than school district levies.

"There is definitely still tax incentive to Florida. That's very obvious. What we see, though, especially in the luxury sector, is that global luxury buyers, it's not that they're either going to New York or either going to Florida. Most of those buyers have a home in both locations. So there's definitely a tax benefit to being in Florida, without a doubt," Naftali said.

"It's just math. The effective tax rate, I believe, in New York, if you're in the top tax bracket, is somewhere between 50 and 55%, depending on what borough and so forth. There's no state income tax and there's no city tax here. So the top tax bracket is set by the federal government, that's it. That's the math. If anybody would tell you different, it's not an opinion, that just factually is the truth," Shear argued.

"I've read countless articles saying how real estate taxes are going through the roof. Well, it's not the real estate tax going through the roof. There's just more expensive real estate. It's not that the tax rate is changing," he continued. "But if you want to go to a city that's checking all these boxes that somebody's looking for — massive growth, massive job[s], large population, high rises and so forth — I think it's impossible to find one. So again, to the point of relativity, it's all relative to the next option. I think as an option, it does not get better than South Florida."

U.S. Census Bureau figures show the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area's median household income was $80,625 in 2024, about $1,000 below the national median of $81,604. The developers also pointed to infrastructure, permitting and school expansion as efforts to accommodate future population growth across South Florida.

While local median incomes may lag national benchmarks, Shear noted the region's economic engine is fundamentally changing as major employers relocate their corporate headquarters, rather than just opening small satellite branches.

Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Wilson speaks with Fox News Digital about the intention behind a new Times Square ad targeting Zohran Mamdani as businesses and wealth flee New York for Florida.

video

New billboard campaign names NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Florida’s ‘Economic Developer of the Year’

Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Wilson speaks with Fox News Digital about the intention behind a new Times Square ad targeting Zohran Mamdani as businesses and wealth flee New York for Florida.

"It's not just the people that are moving down here. People are moving their companies down here," Shear explained, noting that PMG shifted its primary headquarters from New York to Miami. "We've reached a tipping point where you're seeing companies... that are planting their flag in Miami and building companies or taking their existing company and moving them to Miami."

"I think specifically in Miami, people will continue to move down here. As we said, this is no longer a seasonal location, right? You have everything here," Naftali said. "It's a continuous progression. So when you talk about the next five years, it's only going to continue to get better. So if you're able to get in now and invest in a new development down here, I think it's a great investment opportunity."

"Ask people, where do you want to spend the rest of your life?" Shear said. "Not everything's about price per square foot, and I still think it's a value play down here, but I think it is about a lot more down in Florida… Work hours, quality of life, weather, state income tax, restaurants, who's down here. I mean, Miami's culture now is incredible… how lucky are we to experience the world's cultures in one city? Fundamentally, people are moving down here and still are continuing to, not just because you save on taxes or there's good sun. I think people have finally figured out that living in Florida may just be a better life that they want, and that's invaluable."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/miami-really-costlier-than-new-york-city-why-top-developers-say-math-still-favors-florida

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