Property tax rates vs home values

[raschuetz]

Story issue checklist

My pitch was (use the number): #97

• [x] My pitch has been approved (see PITCHING.md)
• [x] My story issue links to my pitch issue
• [x] I link to my finalized (ish) data source(s)
• [x] I've included a brief summary of my story
• [x] I've included some possible headlines or findings
• [x] I've included some links or images as inspiration (if you have any)
• [x] I have received two comments of peer feedback
• [x] I've included an update of my visualization/story in a comment
• [ ] I have received two comments of peer feedback after posting an update
• [ ] I have received editorial feedback

[raschuetz]

States try to make homeownership more affordable by lowering property tax rates. Is there in fact a correlation between lower property tax rates and home values? I'd like to explore the relationship between the two. The US Census has the property tax rates of the largest city in each state throughout the years (I can't link because they download as XLS files), and Zillow has data for median sale values in those cities throughout the years. I'm planning to first examine the relationship between tax rates and home values in the most recent year for which data is available; if I have time, I may also compare the results to a past year.

Potential headlines:

Lower property tax rates actually hurt new new homebuyers Census data shows how cities can help new homebuyers Helping new homebuyers by lowering tax rates? Not so fast.

[raschuetz]

Peer feedback is on the pitch

[jsoma]

As much as I usually hate them, _this _might* be a good case for a regression line*. Barney's from a while back is a version that makes an attempt at being friendly/understandable.

You can probably get rid some set of white axes/grid lines on the outside - maybe the top, left, right and bottom (like the spines), or maybe just the bottom left and right?

Font size on axis tick is a little aggressive, you could make it a bit smaller and your point could still get across. Might be able to get rid of the black ticks altogether?

Push up your y-axis label a bit to center it 😉

And I know I'm just supposed to critique, but I adore the alignment and boldness etc of the title + subhead. Maybe make the font size for the headline a liiiitle bit bigger? It looks like the subhead might actually be a larger font size than the title, or that might just be thin lines playing tricks on me.

Tag those outliers! Maybe two on the top left and maybe cluster the three on the bottom right under one description? Just drop them into a contrasting color and they'll really easily pop.

Super clean overall!

[playfairbot]

Hi there, I'm the Playfair Bot! Thanks for posting your story issue, but would you mind adding editing the original issue to add the first draft of your image? You have my sincere apologies, but it's easier for dumb robots like me when the comments are only used for updates. Thanks! :pray: