The quality of schools and attractiveness of the community (parks, roads, etc) and safety (fire, police, etc) of the community.

If you seek to fund those things through a VAT that is levied across the board, you end up having a lot of people who don't realize a monetary return for what they pay while others get back disproportionately more than they pay.

Meanwhile many people who support a VAT are opposed to welfare, public assistance programs, or even graduated tax rates based on income where those at the bottom effectively pay nothing because the feel is that people are getting more back out of the system than they put into it and that's not fair. Okay with being opposed to that, but if you are you can't legitimately look at the property tax scenario and want to replace it with a VAT without turning a blind eye to the fact that property owners are the ones who get the most back from what a property taxes fund because they realize the significant increase in the value of their property when they sell relative to those who rent or don't own property and never realize that returned value.