How much are your property taxes?

[jbenny75]

The electric bill thread inspired me to start this. My eyes popped out of my head when I opened my electric bill, and my brain almost exploded when I found out what our property taxes were. We really need property tax reform in PA. There are tons of elderly people losing their homes because they can't afford the taxes anymore. We moved into our house in the middle of a tax period, so we have to pay taxes for that interim and for the coming year. County property taxes and school taxes for that period combined came to $12,000!!! :eek:

Next year, for a normal yearly tax period, they will only be $9,000. ONLY!!! But that's a lot better than 12 grand. Are taxes like this everywhere? I never really paid attention before because our first house was in DH's name only, so he took care of all of that.

[thedoorchick]

Depends on the state. In TX they are pretty high because we don't have a state income tax.

Someone I know in LA said that their annual taxes were roughly the same as we pay in one month! I almost died. Then remembered they pay too, just in other forms of taxes.

[thedoorchick]

Also here they passed a law last year that freezes property taxes for the elderly, which solves the problem mentioned above.

[juliemag]

Ours next year will be about $4000. :eek:

[JenniferEC]

I guess I should feel lucky. Ours are just more than $3200/year.

[chefker]

Our property tax is just over $5000. We have 1.7 acres though, so if we had a 'regular' size lot, it'd be half of that probably.

Auto tax here was a surprise...very high rates. MUCH higher than when I used to live in MA. In MA, I paid $38 for my 1999 Dodge Neon (this was in 2002). My last CT tax bill for the car was for 2004--and it was $70. Almost double what it was in MA.

I just bought a new Subaru this year, so I'm dreading getting THAT tax bill (which will probably come either in January or July 2006). I expect it'll be well over $500. :eek:

On the flip side--my car insurance got cheaper, once I traded in the Neon for the Subaru! Go figure....

[greenbunny]

I'm in PA too, and ours are about $4500. We live in one of the best school districts in the state, so we pay a lot for that. But nothing like nine grand. Are you near Philly, jbenny?

[bethnjim]

Are you near Philly, jbenny?

I leave near PHilly and my property taxes are right around $1,800.00 a year. Of course, I can't send out future kids to the schools that are around us and we live in a "twin". My mom lives on the outskirts of Philly and her taxes are right around $4000 and the school district is AWESOME. We are in the process of looking for a house there so we can send our future kids to that school district!

[dragonfly28602]

I got our bill the other day... $378.08 for a little over an acre.

[amew]

Ours are a little over $8000/year. We are in Texas, and like thedoorchick mentioned, property taxes are high here due to the lack of state income tax.

[lindybug]

Ours are about $6000/year here in MD. About half what my folks pay up in NY.

[dzil]

Florida does not have state income tax either, and property taxes aren't too bad. Ours was about $2500.

[Reebs]

lindybug, where do you live? I'm in Howard County, MD. Our taxes are almost $13,000/year. That is for 1.25 acres. In NJ where I am originally from, my sister pays $18,000/year! :eek:

[jellybeany]

We are going to have a small lot but the house we are buying is around $2000 a year for property/school taxes.

[villanelle75]

I think us Californians have you all trumped. I pay just shy of $100 in annual car registration for my more-than-10-year-old car. When it was newer, it was closer to $200. We pay state income tax, and fromwhat I understand it's one of the higher state tax rates in the country, On top of that, our property taxes on a townhose with NO land (no yard, so our only land is the footprint of the house and the driveway), we'll pay about $8400 a year for regular property taxes.

But we have nice weather. ;)

[MrsSmith]

Wait, I'm confused...people are paying $13,000 a year for taxes? How is that justified? Is it just your county or is that average for the entire state?

I think I'm paying too much, but I'm only paying about $1400 a year. :o

[kris97]

It really depends where you are, even within a state. We pay between 5 and 6,000 and we are in NJ (reebs- does your sister live in a huge house, or bergen/essex county?)

[2kCougar]

I'm in NY a.k.a. "the land of taxes". our property taxes are $11k a year. I think our lot is 1/3 of an acre. The only thing that isn't taxed here is food (how nice of the lawmakers :rolleyes: ).

[Sevilla]

We live in a higher-property-tax county and suburb of Chicago and for our .25 acre lot and small house we pay $3,100.00/year. My parents think that's outrageous b/c their town about 15 minutes away has a lot lower rates. I think it's not that bad at all considering what i hear my other friends around the country and in the city pay.

[MrsSmith]

My mom pays about $5000 a year and she stays in a major metro area. I don't, so I knew mine wouldn't be as much as hers. I just didn't realize how expensive they got in some other areas.

[kiddo]

The property tax rate in our town is $10 on $1000. We just bought our house in December and last year the taxes were $1800. However, the house is assessed really low right now so I expect it to go up the next assessment.

We are still pretty lucky, though. We have one of the lowest tax rates in the state and one of the better school systems. Thanks to all the $1M plus water front homes!

Oh, and we have 1 acre of land.

[Tanya]

Good thing we live on the border of 2 counties and are offically in the cheaper county. Of course, we are also zoned to a slightly worse school district. Our taxes are about $6k/year. Our next door neighbors are almost double. Crazy!

[Reebs]

kris, my sister lives on Monmouth County (where I grew up) and her house is probably about 5000 square feet on 3/4 of an acre.

I had originally thought our property taxes were only $6500/year until DH informed me that was for 6 months!! We paid $7000 for our TH on .07 acres!

[Jennifer]

In CA you pay about 1.1% of your homes assessed value in property taxes - plus local assessments and bond measures (which in my area add only a few hundred a year - but can add thousands in some newly developing areas). Due to Prop 13 values are assessed when you purchase your home and not again until it sells (ie refi's don't affect it and neither does it get reassessed as home values rise each year).

This means if a family bought years ago and paid $100,000 for their home - taxes will be $1100 (plus local stuff - so maybe $1500?)...but if it sells now for $800k the new owners will be paying nearly $9000 on the same house.

So some people think their taxes are low since they've owned for a while - but anyone buying into the crazy housing market will pay a LOT more (this made our decision to remodel our home and add a pool instead of buying a place that had more space and a pool already - MUCH cheaper just in property tax savings to stay where we are!)

[Lizard]

Ours is about $1900 a year, however our city is ridiculously far behind on assessments. Our house hasn't been assessed for taxes since 2000. Once they do that again (who knows when that will happen), our taxes will double. On one hand I think it's crappy they do it so rarely and we'll have to eat a giant tax hike, but on the other hand I hope they don't do it until after we move to a new place. :)

[Asha]

we pay only $1,300/year in nyc. property taxes are the only thing that's cheap here.

though we pay hefty income taxes. around 3% for nyc income tax and another 6% for ny state income tax.

personally, i would rather pay more for property taxes and at least get a nicer neighborhood out of the deal than pay all that income tax.

[amew]

FYI, I just found this online:

LOCAL PROPERTY TAXES (Per capita/year*)

5 BEST STATES 5 WORST STATES
Arkansas $191 New Jersey $1,871
Alabama $285 Connecticut $1,733
Kentucky $376 Maine $1,439
New Mexico $380 New York $1,402
Oklahoma $425 Rhode Island $1,368

U.S. average $935

[LeslieandPaul]

Well, I'm in Canada, but I do pay property taxes. Ours were around $750, but we only paid about $380 because we got a homeowners grant (if you live in your house-don't rent it out-you don't have to pay all the taxes). We have a condo.
My mom's taxes are under $2000/yr (for a 1/4 acre).
$13000 a year in property taxes is what you'll pay for a large, ocean view lot with a massive house in White Rock (very nice area).

[Annette]

I nearly choked when I got our estimated bill of around 10k. In our county its 3% of the assessed value and its assessed yearly.

I really hate the notion of property taxes. It sucks that you will never be able to live in your home for free, except utilities after you pay it off.

[bluberry]

Ours were $3400/yr for a 1900 sq ft as of last year. However in the years before that, they claim to have underassessed our property value. So last year, they retroactively charged us for the two yrs they underassesed and asked us to pay current year.

They gave us a 1-year grace period to pay it all off. What ended up happening was our mortgage payment literally DOUBLED. I am still upset about the fact that they can do this! Luckily, we were able to handle the double mortgage (barely), but what about people who can't? You can't just do that to people.

[Asha]

in parts of harlem, property taxes skyrocketed due to increased appreciation. the homeowners fought it, and i think they "won" and can still pay their "cheaper" property taxes for the time being.

do they have the star program in other states besides ny? my parents pay significantly less bc they enrolled in it.

[BethElena]

We live in PA - $812 school tax (just came a week ago). ha! the joys of living in a box.... :)

[amorey]

I think ours are about $1,000. They just went up. We live in a tiny house in a “transitional” neighborhood, though. I’m expecting our next house to be in the low $2,000. Minnesota has high state income tax, I think.

After reading about the taxes in Texas, I am much less jealous of the cheap real estate there!

[jude29]

Ours will be around $6K a year. We are also required to have flood insurance...thanks Hurricane Allison!!

[karlatta]

We are in Texas. For our home, we pay 3% a year in taxes.

I love not having state income tax and not having to pay property taxes on cars.

[scout]

Ours are $4500 a year.

[camberne]

Our Real Estate taxes are $1.1964 per $100 of assessed value... which puts ours at just under $2000 annually. My personal property tax for my Aviator was just under $500. I don't understand the personal property tax, though... we pay sales tax when we buy the damn things, why is it that they charge us annually for just having cars? It pisses me off.

[Heidi9771]

Depends on the state. In TX they are pretty high because we don't have a state income tax.

Same here in N.H.! edited to add, ours are just under 8K a year.

[jbenny75]

I'm in PA too, and ours are about $4500. We live in one of the best school districts in the state, so we pay a lot for that. But nothing like nine grand. Are you near Philly, jbenny?

Nope, I'm in Berks County. But we have four acres and a pretty nice house.

[julesp313]

Wow, I knew NY property taxes were high because I have a friend who lives there, but I had no clue other states were just as bad. We moved from SoCal, where we paid $2400 a year on a townhouse, and now we live in Henderson, NV, where we just got our bill for the year - $1850 for a 2200 sq ft house. And that includes school taxes... and we have no state income tax.

Still shocked at what some of you are having to pay... oof.

[ee_chick]

I'm in SoCal, and with local bonds, I pay about 1.22% of the purchase price. Every year the payment is allowed to increase 2% from the year before. The 1% base rate, plus the 2% yearly cap was done as tax payer reform decades ago when homeowners were facing a lot of the problems discussed here. Since my house purchase is recent, I think my taxes are through the roof.

As noted earlier, CA residents also pay income tax (up to 9% of your income, IIRC), sales tax (7.5+%), and vehicle registration taxes/fees.

[Freckles]

Chicago Suburbs $7500. per year under an acre
Taxes in general in this state are atrocious----We are orginally from New England {MA & RI} and things were much more reasonable there.

[beachlvr]

My property taxes are about $7300 per year. I think that's about 1.5% of assessed value. But the assesed value is limited to an increase of 2% a year, so that's nice.

I also pay sales tax of 8.75% on everything I buy but food, plus a state income tax and vehicle licensing fees. That's in the San Francisco area.

[Islandbride1025]

Just got our bill this week and they are $6000 yr. When we bought our house 3 years ago and at the time they were about $4500.

Can anything be done about having taxes reduced?

[Tanya]

Just got our bill this week and they are $6000 yr. When we bought our house 3 years ago and at the time they were about $4500.

Can anything be done about having taxes reduced?

If you feel your house is appraised by the city too high, then you can appeal to get it lowered. My friend just did this and all she had to do was bring in something showing how much they purchased it for (3 years ago!) and they lowered it to that amount. But most cities aren't that easy. Also, make sure you have the homestead exemption on your house if it's your primary home. In our area, that gives us an exemption on the first $30k (I think?) and we pay full taxes on the rest.

I also wanted to add that our percentage that we pay is around 2.3%. The neighboring county is over 4%! That is just ridiculous, and I will not be buying in that county anytime soon.

[Rancid13]

In CA you pay about 1.1% of your homes assessed value in property taxes - plus local assessments and bond measures (which in my area add only a few hundred a year - but can add thousands in some newly developing areas). Due to Prop 13 values are assessed when you purchase your home and not again until it sells (ie refi's don't affect it and neither does it get reassessed as home values rise each year).

Ditto this! We pay $2707 a year on our property taxes. And our property taxes are based on a percentage of the assessed value. Even though we paid $403K for our condo (it was appraised at $425K at the time of purchase), our total assessment is in the $240K range, which is nice as far as taxes go. But it hurts ever so slightly when you see that the neighbor downstairs from you who bought back in 1996 only owes $1500/year in property taxes, but it's really not that huge of a difference when it all comes down to it.

What really hurts is the Federal and State income taxes here in CA.

[greenbunny]

Nope, I'm in Berks County. But we have four acres and a pretty nice house.

I love Berks! Such a pretty area. We're in Lehigh county, with 3/4 of an acre.

[daydreamer]

Sorry guys but you all made me feel better about my $900 property tax (but I still thinks it's too high). BTW, I live in Oklahoma.

[amew]

Sorry guys but you all made me feel better about my $900 property tax (but I still thinks it's too high). BTW, I live in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma does have extremely low property taxes. My parents are in OKC and their property taxes are less than half mine (in Texas) despite the fact that their house is worth about three times as much as mine is. Frankly, I think Oklahoma needs a little bit higher property tax -- the schools really need the money.

[Mindy3094]

Holy cow. I can't believe what some of you pay in taxes. Wow.

We have a 1900 square feet house on 7 acres in Ohio. We pay $2400/yr in property tax. Most of that goes to the local school district.

[Little Angel '77]

I want to say 3700.00
Or 2700.00
I have owned 3 houses, so I forget :)

[steviem]

We live in the Long Beach area and our property taxes are roughly $5,000. Not too bad compared to the amount we had to pay to get the home!

The home prices in SoCal are out of control! It is so hard for first time buyers to make their way into the market. The good news is our home was recently appraised for $91K more than when we first bought it exactly 1 year ago :D

[DallasLady]

Ours are around $3500. Taxes in my city are 2.5% of assessed value (which is very reasonable for around here).

[StephB1170]

I have you all beat. Not that I am proud of this...I just called DH to double check because nobody is saying anything near my number and I wanted to double check....

:eek: :eek: $ 16,000 A YEAR!!! :eek: :eek:

[smiles33]

WOW, where do you live StephnB1170?

I'm another SF Bay Area homeowner and since we just moved into a new house, I'm not sure of our exact amount but it will be around $11,000-$12,000 depending on additional bonds/assessment fees (like the Mosquito Abatement fee, sanitary district fee, etc.).

Our old house, which was a 1766 sq ft on a TINY 2600 lot (in a planned urban development, almost like a townhouse but no shared walls), cost us over $5,000 a year.

[StephB1170]

In the Philly 'burbs....

[kindermom]

We pay about $1,600 a year in taxes in Maryland for a average sized townhome.

It is interesting to see people's tax rates. It boggles my mind having to pay $2,000 a month in property taxes alone. I guess I am grateful that our county 1) has a reasonable tax rate and 2) is not valued at a crazy high figure.

[ginadc]

I got quite the sticker shock when I moved from Washington DC to NJ to marry DH. My house in DC? Less than $1K a year in taxes. They may have reassessed a bit since I sold it in 2002, but I still can't imagine it's more than $1500 now. That house was about 2500 SF, 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, smallish lot.

Now we're in Essex County NJ, where every township that isn't Newark pays for Newark, and our taxes are about $13-14K. It's a bigger house, but not 15 times as big! We were in Monmouth County for about a year and things were just as bad there (if not worse, because we paid for two school systems; a regional high school system and local elementary/middle schools). It's crazy. We absolutely love our town and it's worth it to us to live here for all kinds of reasons--the schools are great--but that's a huge amount of $$.

[kemaji]

We pay about $2k/year in property tax.

[Jenean]

I actually feel pretty lucky with my taxes. I live in Westchester County (NYC suburb). DH and I pay about $7200/year in taxes, after our STAR exemption. We have a 2100 sq. ft. house on .93 acre. We're even in a really good school district. My ILs live 20 minutes away and pay about $13K a year. DH's aunt and uncle live in Chappaqua in a 6-bedroom house and pay around $15K or $16K I think.

A friend of mine in Vegas pays about $1800 a year for her house, which is the same size as mine, although she has a little bit less land.

[EmilyBronte]

In Raleigh, NC (Wake County), we pay approx. $1 per $100 of the assessed property value. This includes both city and county taxes. Our assessed values are evaluated every 7 years. I have a friend who paid $297,000 for their house and their assessed value is $238,000. Their taxes are $2400 per year.

ETA - I used a friend because I don't know what the assessed value is on this house as it was my DH's before we were married and I haven't asked. I sold the house to my friend so that is how I know their info.

[WisWis]

Our property taxes are less than $300/year. However, we live in a 1200 sq. ft. house on about 1/3 acre in rural southern VA. I can't imagine paying $10,000 plus in property taxes! There's no way we could afford that! I have a feeling I'm going to have trouble when we eventually move and have to rejoin the real world...

[sea74]

We live in Michigan, a 2,800 sq ft home and we pay about $6,700 a year.

[SiValleySteph]

We pay about $6k a year in CA. It seems reasonable. Now we're a bit stuck because if we were to sell our house and move into a comparably priced home (to its current value) our taxes would be closer to $9k. Good thing we like our house for now!

Oh, we live in a townhouse - 1850 sq feet, 3000 sq ft lot.

[Anitsiva]

I am in Northern NJ and our taxes are $8,300....In just 1 year they have gone up oabout $1000. I can't imagine what they will be in 5 years.

[Asha]

we are pretty lucky to only pay about $1,300/year, but we also live in a condo/townhouse. though, our city income taxes more than make up for it bc we pay about 6% of our income to city taxes.

[lawyergirl25]

$4500/year - ETA: sorry, forgot stats. We're in OH and our house is 2000 square feet...but we pay a heft school district assessment in addition to our "normal" property taxes.

[roberta]

In NY property tax on our 2,000 sq. foot house with 1/3 acre was between $7-8,000. Don't exactly remember how much.

In MN on our 2,500 sq. ft house with 1 acre will be between $3-4,000. gotta love that savings.

[Ginnie]

Our property tax is $2,600.00 CAD a year

[andrew&shannah]

$4400/year for a ~1700 sq ft townhouse

[villanelle75]

We pay roughly $6000 for a 1950 sqft townhouse with no yard or lot. While that sucks, at least in CA we are fortuante that our taxes only go up a small amount each year, which is to account for basic inflation. I think it is about 1% per year. With the way housing costs have been rising, if the the taxes were based on a re-assessed value (rather than original purhcase price plus 1% yearly), it would be even worse, so I guess we should count or blessings.

[NotDesperate]

Our property taxes are about $1,200. Whew, thats cheap I guess!

ETA: Our house is 1800 square feet with a .18 acre lot in a nice part of town.

[JLRenheos]

We pay roughly $2850 Year. We have almost a 1500 sq. ft. house.

[Kimberland30]

Ours will be about $2500 for the year for a 1700 sf house.

[julietchicago]

$3700 per year, 1800 SF house in Northern Illinois.

[Littlelamb11]

we're in the north shore burbs of chicago and pay just over 10K for our 3700sqft house. although that tax is based on 2700sqft from before we finished the basement last year.

we used to pay $8900 for a 1500 sqft condo in chicago.

[QueenDillyDally]

We pay $2800 per year - living in a rural town in Maine (they have no middle school or high school in our town). We have 2 acres of land and a 1600 sq ft home.

But, in Maine, our state income tax is one of the highest in the nation. Roughly, 7% of our gross income. And we pay sales tax on everything except food. And, in Maine, we have a lower incomes.

Taxes s.u.c.k.!

[BonBon06-11-05]

We pay around $1400/year for an 1100 sq ft house and our house is located on a rather large lot (not sure of the exact size, however, it's WAY bigger than your normal city lot. I think it's the size of 3 city lots combined.)

[fuzzy]

About $6000 a year for a ~2,000 sq ft house on 19 acres.

[craftgenius]

I am SHOCKED at how high some of you all's property taxes are!!! :eek: Especially in Texas!! I had heard that property taxes in Texas are really high...and I thought you guys were lucky because the price of homes was so inexpensive....I guess the cost of property taxes makes up for it!! Good grief!! I live in Louisiana and last year our property taxes on a 1865 sq. foot living area home on 1/3 acre lot was around $1400/year.

[mrstim]

Wow - we're lucky! We pay city & county taxes - together they equal $996 per year. We have a 1600 sqft house, on 1.45 acres.

[betsyboop]

We pay about $4500 per year for our 1000sqft house on .25 acre in suburban Boston. That's just a town tax- we don't have a county tax. I've actually never even heard of a county tax:confused:

We do get a lot for our taxes in my town though. The schools are consistantly rated in the top 3 in the state and we have a wonderful new park/playing field area/swimming pond/small amphitheater (sp?) that has a ton of stuff to do all summer long. Plus, we have a brand new, supposedly state-of-the-art police/fire station that's actually pretty impressive looking.

[Sashi]

We pay a total of approximately $4,500 for school and township taxes for a 2,444 square foot townhouse. It's pretty expensive but normal for the area. IMO, we live in one of the best suburbs of Philadelphia and what I would consider the 2nd best school district in our county.

[tenofcups]

After two years, I think we've finally got it figured out (the bills come at different times of the year and look the same but are different colors and it's very confusing!). We pay about $3,000 for a rowhouse in the city that's about 2,000 sf. That includes city real estate tax, city school district real estate tax, and county real estate and library tax.

That seems like a "reasonable" rate to me and I'm ok with it. On the other hand, I'd never send a child to school in this school district and I'm really curious to see what the total comes to in the outlying suburbs around here.

[Sashi]

Are you in Philly tenofcups?

[jessied1025]

We paid $4,000 for our just under 1,400 sqft house in WI.

[StephB1170]

Sashi- what school district are you in in the suburbs? I am in Methacton.