Property taxes as a % of home value...

[The Captain]

So DH and I are house hunting.  We live in an area where we can move to one of five different counties.

The difference is real estate taxes by area is staggering!  One house we looked at has taxes = 4.1% of the home's (supposed) value on an annual basis.  So if house is worth $300K, taxes are a little over $12k a year.

Another area the same house has taxes at 2.1% or about $6.3K a year.

Also intersting to note the lower tax area has schools rated slightly better than the higher tax area, but pays less for taxes to cover the school portion.

What % of your homes' value do you pay in real estate taxes each year?

[midjd]

Ours is assessed at $200K and we pay about $1300 a year. The state caps rates at 1.5%.

[Blonde Granny]

Arkansas is rather weird the way they handle real estate taxes: The Assessor decides on the value of your house and land.  Then they multiply the market value by the assessment rate level of 20% then multiple that by the county and local mill levy.

If this posts right here is an example:

Improvements: 252,050(house) 50,410 (land)
Total Value: 268,050 (house)53,610 (land)
Taxable Value: 37,190
Millage: 0.0586
Estimated Taxes [?]: $2,179.33
Homestead Credit: ($350.00)
Estimated Taxes w Credit: $1,829.33
Assessment Year: 2013

[Deleted]

California has Prop 13.

My taxes are fixed at about 1% of the value of my property and home.  And, the only benefit of having a mobile vs. stick built house is that the home is devalued each year for taxes because it is considered "personal property" rather than "real estate."

Our local tax folks agreed to use our lawsuit settlement amount as our value.  We purchased at 95K and settled for 30K from our seller, and 6K from the realtors, so they fixed our value at about 60K.

So, while I can sell for about $100K, the tax assessment is 60K and cannot raise more than 2% per year because of Prop 13.

My taxes are about $650 a year.

[Malarky]

This year it is $14.18 per thousand. It changes from year to year. 

[travelnut11]

About 2.4% --> $5036 on $210K assessment in a MCOL midwest city

[Deleted]

We're a hair under 1%.  About .9 

[whoisjohngalt]

This is the ONLY thing I like about MA is that your property taxes can't go up more than certain % each year.

In my state, whatever town votes on - goes, so it can change drastically year to year

And I am not even going to mention how much we pay - don't want any of you falling off your chairs

[alabamagal]

    Mine are 1.1% of my estimated value of my house. Taxes are $2000 plus change. They are 1.5% of the counties assessed value of my house.

[bean29]

Well, my city has my house assessed at $278,400 which I thik is pretty close to what our appraisal was when we refi'd our house a year or so ago.  The taxes on the house were $6,680.19 with credits of $451.58 so the net bill is $6228.61 or about 2.25% of value.

Our taxes will go up next year...DH just finished his work on the basement.  We had permits pulled and they have insisted on walking through every year for the last 5 years or so to see his progress.  We are 99% done now.  Full Kitchen, Full Bath, Bedroom, Family room, full (wet) bar, and an office.  The bedroom and office qualify as "legal" bedroom b/c we have an exposure with 4 windows and a door in the lower level.  I am sure they are going to hit us hard but I have been fighting with them since I moved in so I will just get back in battle mode.

Bathroom was pretty much done when our house was appraised as was the bedroom but he only counted the office I think, b/c the doors were not on the bedrom/bathroom so he did not count it.  I am going to try to use that as an argument b/c you can see the finishes in the pictures they now include in the appraisals.

[Tiny]

Well, my house appraised for 130K 3 months ago (for a mortgage) - and I'm paying 6300 in property taxes... so that's a staggering 4.9% And tommorrow I get to vote on 2 referanda that add additional taxes - it's estimated my property tax will jump 1K! and that's in addition to the typical yearly $300-$500 hike in taxes that occurs each year because the taxes going up every year.

The monthly $$ I need to save for my property taxes is already MORE than I pay for principle/interest on my mortgage.

Even a paid for house is expensive where I live.

[bookkeeper]

The assessed value of our home is $165,000 and our tax bill is $2350 so about 1.4%  Our house is 40 years old and we have lived here for the last 15 years.  We are having a real estate agent come through this week for a market assessment.  The last time we had a realtor walk though the house was 2010 and she valued it at $200,000.

Similar houses in town are paying more than double the property tax we are.  We live a mile and a half from town and I am glad we do.

[Deleted]

1.13% for my house and 1.9% at my soon to be sold former rental.  The difference is in how the local government funded new schools and other improvements when the subdivision was built.

[HoneyBBQ]

Mine is too much. That I know. I guess it's in the 1% range. We pay around 10k a year.

[quince]

3.5% of purchase price- 7% of the tax assessment.

[Deleted]

$4,600 on a house valued at $300,000
So 1.53%

[Deleted]

Mar 17, 2014 14:08:40 GMT -5 whoisjohngalt said:

This is the ONLY thing I like about MA is that your property taxes can't go up more than certain % each year.

2%

[haapai]

Annual property taxes on this place are currently about 3.6% of what I paid for it or 2.15% of what the assessor says the house is worth.  Property taxes are capped and include garbage pickup.  Non owner-occupied property is taxed at a much higher rate, probably 50% more. 

I had a devil of a time trying to figure out property taxes (and escrow reserve requirements) when I was buying right after a 40-60% crash in home prices.  I was looking at both owner-occupied and bank-owned houses in three different tax jurisdictions which collected the bulk of their taxes at different times.  The taxes paid in the prior year were included in listings but the number in the listing bore little resemblance to the taxes that I was going to have to pay. 

I could easily imagine a close-to-the edge buyer not being able to buy a place because their lender relied entirely on prior-year tax info in making decisions. 

[Sum Dum Gai]

Under 1%, if you use the real value of the house.  Prop 13 caps the taxes at 1%, most local governments add a little bit, but Prop 13 also caps your assessed value increase at 2% a year.  The last few years housing prices here have been increasing at closer to 10% a year, but my taxes are based on a 2% increase.

[Bonny]

Another Prop 13 "protected" homeowner.

However our town/school district never seems to turn down any special assessment. Plus we have a bunch of county and bond fees. The town also assesses sewer fees via the County tax bill.

So we start out with 1% of the assessed value $499,455

Less homeowners exemption of $7000

Then a host of bonds and fees many of which are calculated on assessed value totaling $754.51

And our sewer bill of $1559.76

For a grand total of $7308.82

Our market value is about $900,000.

Someone buying our house today would have property taxes north of $12,000.  Ouch!

[Sum Dum Gai]

Mar 17, 2014 18:55:26 GMT -5 Bonny said:

Another Prop 13 "protected" homeowner.

However our town/school district never seems to turn down any special assessment. Plus we have a bunch of county and bond fees. The town also assesses sewer fees via the County tax bill.

So we start out with 1% of the assessed value $499,455

Less homeowners exemption of $7000

Then a host of bonds and fees many of which are calculated on assessed value totaling $754.51

And our sewer bill of $1559.76

For a grand total of $7308.82

Our market value is about $900,000.

Someone buying our house today would have property taxes north of $12,000.  Ouch!

Works out to 0.8% even with all the fees, which is pretty good. You're only rebuying your house once a century. I see states that charge 3-4% and can't help but think you're paying for the house twice by the time you finish the original 30 year mortgage. Not even including the interest.

[DVM gone riding]

My house is assessed at about 167k and I pay about 1800/yr in taxes. the thing is I paid about that when the house was assessed at 207k too. I don't know what the state max is. Some things like levies are decided locally. Our county has 4 school districts.

[teen persuasion]

Mar 17, 2014 20:29:24 GMT -5 DVM gone riding said:

My house is assessed at about 167k and I pay about 1800/yr in taxes. the thing is I paid about that when the house was assessed at 207k too. I don't know what the state max is. Some things like levies are decided locally. Our county has 4 school districts.

Is that a small county, or BIG districts? My county has 10 school districts, and they are pretty consolidated compared to the county south of me. My district is multi-town, but some towns in the other county have 3 or 4 districts each!

My school taxes are $1623.09, after the STAR exemption on the first $30k or so assessed value. My property taxes are $1838.04 on the full assessed value of ~$100k. However, that includes all sorts of things:
County tax 832.56 
Town tax 318.82
Drainage 39.23
Fire protection 141.50
County refuse 8.32
Town refuse 181.75
County water district 65.86
Town water improvement 250.00

Does everyone's tax bill have breakdowns like this? From other threads I get the impression that some areas bill separately for trash pickup.

ETA: So my tax rate is approaching 3.5%.

[muttleynfelix]

From the county assessor's website:
                        Appraised Values     Assessed Values
Current Land      $31,700                 $5,900
Current Building $114,500               $21,760
Current Total     $146,200                $27,660

Hopefully their appraisal is low, otherwise we are still underwater by $11k after 7 years in the house. UGH!  I wish I would have been smarter about that stuff back then. 

We paid $1309.64. in real estate taxes last year.  Missouri also has this lovely thing called personal property tax.  You pay it on your vehicles, tractors, campers, etc. It means our renewal price for the tags on our vehicles is pretty low ($50 for 2 years), but then you are paying a tax on them every year on top of it.  Personal property taxes also provide funding for the schools, fire district, library, etc.

[The Captain]

Been doing a little more digging and according to some local advocacy groups we have the dubious honor of having the second highest real estate tax rates in the nation (in one of the counties I'm considering).

*Gaack*

My father's home, has taxes of .6%.  Yes, there is a decimal in front, $600 on a house worth about $100K.  There is no senior or homeowner exemption either.

[Bonny]

Mar 18, 2014 8:30:00 GMT -5 @wxyz said:

2.1%  This is ( GASP ) $18,000 per year.  We just put in application for cap on the taxes due to age 65.

What metro area are you in?

[yogiii]

2.2% for me

[flutterby]

Mar 18, 2014 8:43:02 GMT -5 The Captain said:

My father's home, has taxes of .6%.  Yes, there is a decimal in front, $600 on a house worth about $100K.  There is no senior or homeowner exemption either.

Yep, my last house appraised for about $425,000. Taxes were $1890 a year. Less than 1/4 mile down the road over the county line, taxes for the same house would have been about $5000. That was also with no exemptions. 

[Deleted]

market value for my house is $300k-$339k

Taxes are $6,700 or so

so 1.9%-2.2%

[teen persuasion]

Mar 18, 2014 8:43:02 GMT -5 The Captain said:

Been doing a little more digging and according to some local advocacy groups we have the dubious honor of having the second highest real estate tax rates in the nation (in one of the counties I'm considering).

*Gaack*

My father's home, has taxes of .6%.  Yes, there is a decimal in front, $600 on a house worth about $100K.  There is no senior or homeowner exemption either.

Hey, our governor is insistent that we pay most of the highest property taxes!
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