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What would approximate taxes on a modest 3 BR, 2 bath house in a nice suburb with good schools be, is there too much of a variation to answer that question? Just curious...
Thanks!
As a very general rule, rates tend to be about 2.5% to 3% of the appraised home value (so say $7500 for a $250K house). Rates do vary quite a bit, but once you pick a few school districts, you can look up the local property tax rates in that table.
Thank you! Wow, I have to say I'm a little surprised at how high the taxes are... I thought Westchester County, where I live, always took the cake on property taxes. Do the high property taxes in the Albany area mean that all the union workers are really highly paid/have great benefits/both, or what is it? I think that's a lot of what goes on here.
Do the high property taxes in the Albany area mean that all the union workers are really highly paid/have great benefits/both, or what is it? I think that's a lot of what goes on here.
Yes, they are shockingly high. I think the two biggest problems are that the counties have to cover part of Medicare expenses (25%?) and that there have been many retiree benefits promised over the years. In an area with a declining tax base, old promises become increasingly burdensome.
Ironically enough, the nicest areas tend to have the lowest property taxes around here because they are newer and lack the legacy retiree benefit costs. Schenectady on the other hand is an awful place and it has the highest property taxes in the state (over 5%). They are still paying for their employees from when the area was booming with twice its current population in the 50s.
As a very general rule, rates tend to be about 2.5% to 3% of the appraised home value (so say $7500 for a $250K house). Rates do vary quite a bit, but once you pick a few school districts, you can look up the local property tax rates in that table.
That $7.5K isn't accurate everywhere! My house is assessed for $180K and I pay over $6 in taxes every year with a STAR reduction that looks to be out the window so I'll be screwed! Without the STAR reduction, my taxes would be another $2700. I live in Albany county in a city, but not Albany.
What town/city/village are you looking at? We have property and school taxes as well as county tax. Make sure you find out what all of them are. You may want to be sitting down when you calculate it all out!
That $7.5K isn't accurate everywhere! My house is assessed for $180K and I pay over $6 in taxes every year with a STAR reduction that looks to be out the window so I'll be screwed!
Yeah, I think you'd be looking at about $9k/year in Schenectady. I have been surprised how many people I have met here that have always lived in the area and don't think that the property tax rates are unusual. They are astronomical.
Ahh, benefits that were promised in the past... Not planning a move just yet, but maybe in the future. Definitely something to bear in mind if we do move. Thanks, everyone!
I have been shocked as well at the tax rate. AND, that is JUST property taxes. You must pay School Taxes in addition (something I had never even heard of before moving here...in my past experience, School Taxes were paid out of the Property Tax fund).
I read an explanation for the high tax rate just recently which made sense to me. Let me share it with you, please.
Albany (Capitol District) hosts a very large number of non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations do not pay taxes. Someone must make up the difference. Thus, for-profit businesses and ordinary wage earners and all the others that are NOT tax exempt pay more percentage-wise to keep the boat afloat. Aha!
Albany (Capitol District) hosts a very large number of non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations do not pay taxes. Someone must make up the difference. Thus, for-profit businesses and ordinary wage earners and all the others that are NOT tax exempt pay more percentage-wise to keep the boat afloat. Aha!
Make sense?
That's a CROCK! That's someone's p*$$ poor attempt to give an excuse. The excuse is the politicians in Albany.
Live in Albany and you'll see how the state doesn't run and is so freaking dysfunctional. It's pathetic!
Our moronic governor has cried poor mouth for months and this new budget is joke. It's 9% higher than last year. We have LESS money! So why is the budget increasing?
There's a reason the state has been losing a significant portion of the population every year. My family will be exiting next year. We stayed waiting out the economy, but we can't wait any longer. This state is sucking us down. I was born and raised here and have no NY pride. I'm embarrassed to say I'm from here! I refuse to be a deckhand on the Titanic.
Albany (Capitol District) hosts a very large number of non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations do not pay taxes. Someone must make up the difference. Thus, for-profit businesses and ordinary wage earners and all the others that are NOT tax exempt pay more percentage-wise to keep the boat afloat. Aha!
Make sense?
Sounds bogus to me.
NY politicians are completely incapable of balancing a budget with anything but tax increases, so that's all we ever get. Despite the dire state budget this year, I believe that the newly proposed budget only involved eliminating a couple hundred state worker jobs. This despite the fact that NY has far too many state employees given its population (as compared to the state employee per capita rate of other states). As a point of comparision, California has proposed eliminating about 20000 state jobs to balance their budget (in addition to substantial tax increases).
I'm sure that some public employee areas are short on people, but just look up the TimesUnion article about the state worker that gets paid 90k+ a year and has not had a single thing to do in years. He said that he listens to his iPod and counts cars pass on the interstate while at work. Oh, and he was complaining about it, because he didn't think it was "fair" that he was bored. I don't think it's fair that he has a taxpayer supported job.
(As an aside, the property tax rates that I referred to above include school tax, but they are still way too high.)
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