> Most of us have to pay taxes on property we own every year, pay for many of the public services (water, sewer, trash, etc.), and the benefits returned from taxes (like roads and police) are generally not worth the amount paid in a strict sense.
If you don't think the benefits aren't worth it, why do you keep owning the property? Choosing to continue to own the property implies a revealed preference that the benefits outweigh the costs.
The biggest benefit from owning property is the right to exclusive use of a certain location for infinite time [0]. And the value of this right is proportional to how desirable living there is, which is made up of factors like economic liveness, proximity to nature, government services etc. The thing to note here is that while not all of these are due to government subsidy, all of these are the result of "other people's work"; you can just sit there and if other people do good work, the gains go to you.
Also, as a sidenote, most local services are not funded exclusively by property taxes: there's usually funding from things like sales and income taxes (either from that area, or transferred from higher levels of govt).
[0] - Minus property tax of course, but property tax is rarely equal to the benefit you get; if it was, the purchase price of the property would be 0.
If you don't think the benefits aren't worth it, why do you keep owning the property? Choosing to continue to own the property implies a revealed preference that the benefits outweigh the costs.
The biggest benefit from owning property is the right to exclusive use of a certain location for infinite time [0]. And the value of this right is proportional to how desirable living there is, which is made up of factors like economic liveness, proximity to nature, government services etc. The thing to note here is that while not all of these are due to government subsidy, all of these are the result of "other people's work"; you can just sit there and if other people do good work, the gains go to you.
Also, as a sidenote, most local services are not funded exclusively by property taxes: there's usually funding from things like sales and income taxes (either from that area, or transferred from higher levels of govt).
[0] - Minus property tax of course, but property tax is rarely equal to the benefit you get; if it was, the purchase price of the property would be 0.