Here in California, we tend to have total property tax rates of ~1.5%, which includes improvements like buildings. For various reasons, this is lower than the rest of the country which is more like 2-2.5%. But also, the assessed values of buildings tends to be artificially low in most places. These low assessed values discourage real estate changing hands, because the new owner would often have to pay more.
There's a lot of economists who think we should have a higher tax rate, but only on the true market value of the land, to promote efficient usage of real property.
There's a lot of economists who think we should have a higher tax rate, but only on the true market value of the land, to promote efficient usage of real property.