Neighborhoods, neighborhoods, neighborhoods.... (Baltimore, Ellicott City, Catonsville: to live in, train station, station)

[ruach]

I live on the Catonsville/Baltimore City line. It's a great area. We are actually considering selling our home if you are interested.

[JDS34]

I'm a former Capitol Hill resident and now live in Federal Hill. I actually find the neighborhoods fairly similar and think you would really enjoy Fed Hill if you like Cap Hill. Very walkable and very friendly, although with a bit more character/rough around the edges. FWIW, we'll be putting our Fed Hill house up for sale soon and it will be priced at around $320k- on a great block with a roof deck with views of the Harbor and city. Let me know if you're interested...

[LFF]

Hi again and thanks for all of these replies!

I hadn't thought about Locust Point or Highlandtown. This weekend we're supposed to go through more neighborhoods (including Federal Hill and others you've all suggested) with the realtor and hopefully we can also take a look at Ellicott City.

[bawlmer]

Do yourself a big favor. Spend a weekend going through neighborhoods WITHOUT a real estate agent. You may get a better look at the real Baltimore.

[carolott]

Originally Posted by bawlmer

Do yourself a big favor. Spend a weekend going through neighborhoods WITHOUT a real estate agent. You may get a better look at the real Baltimore.

I second that -- we never used an agent when just looking around the city. I wanted to form my own opinions without the input of someone whose goal was solely to make money.

I have a very good friend who is a realtor and I wouldn't have even asked her for help until deciding on a property.

[LFF]

Originally Posted by bawlmer

Do yourself a big favor. Spend a weekend going through neighborhoods WITHOUT a real estate agent. You may get a better look at the real Baltimore.

Thanks for the suggestion! We do it both ways actually, with and without the realtor. There are at least a couple of properties that we'd like in to see though.

[LFF]

Bawlmer, after hearing people talk today, I think I finally get your screen name. It dawned on me somewhere in Mt Vernon today; I definitely had a d'oh! moment.

I liked Catonsville, Federal Hill (even more this time than the last) and Bolton Hill. I think I like Union Square less after this trip.

I need to look up how property taxes work there. It seems a lot of houses have similar assessments but very different total tax amounts. I want to find out if assessments change when houses are sold and how often they change/are reassessed. I keep finding different information - some properties say they are reassessed annually and some say every 3 years. Does anyone know of a good place to find answers to any/all of the property tax information?

[Scudder]

Here you go . . .

First, its every three years -- you can find the assessment cycle area on the link I pasted below. The different liabilities you are seeing is most likely due to the Homestead Cap, which I explain below.


There are three key initial components to your tax bill; the assessed value, the local rate multiplier (2.268 per $100 in Baltimore City) and the State rate multiplier (currently .112 per $100).

Take your State assessed value, say $100,000 and multiply it by the State tax rate (move the multiplier decimal 2 digits to the left to change it from per $100 to per $1).
$100,000 x .00112 = $112
Then do the same with the local.
$100.000 x .02268 = $2,268
Add them together to get your full tax bill: $2,380

HOWEVER . . . . .
Here’s where it gets tricky and the Homestead Cap comes into play. Providing you are a home owner and actually live in your property, you then qualify for the Homestead Cap. In Baltimore, you are limited to a 4% capped increase in City rates and 10% for State rates. Let’s say you bought your house several years ago and it was assessed at $10,000, making your original liability $238. So if later on values increased considerably and you were reassessed at $100,000 you would be limited as follows.

State Capped increase would be 10% of the original tax of $11.20 x 1.1% = $12.32
City Capped increase is 4% of the original tax of $226.80 x 1.04% = $235.87

So your actual tax due for the next cycle would be $248.19. These show up as CREDITS on your actual tax bill and do not impact the assessed value or the calculation of the uncapped liablity. Each following year, your liability would go up by the City and State caps until you reached the assessed value of $100,000. In this extreme example (assuming no changes in caps or rate) your actual liability would match the assessed value in the year 2053 when the amount due would be $2420.69). This is why long term City homeowners are VERY leery of the proposed tax changes.

By the way, you can find all this information at:
SDAT: Real Property

You can also look up the ACTUAL tax bill for any property in the City at:
Real Property
Take a look at a few of the properties you are interested in and you will see how the various Credits come into play.

HOWEVER, AGAIN . . . .
The State Assessors are in charge of determining the value of homes in Baltimore City and they do a TERRIBLE job of it. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to many of there assessments. In the latest round of assessments, my home was assessed over twice the value of an exact duplicate home next door. I also didn't go into the other tax credits for historic preservation and new construction which also changes the tax liability).

Let's all hope full table gambling gets approved soon and we get some real casinos in here to lower that City rate!

[helenejen]

Just to add, you have to have lived in your house for at least 6 months prior to the new assessment going into effect in July for the homestead cap to kick in. I painfully realized this too late and my property taxes went from $616 to $5214 soon after I bought my newly rehabbed home. Thankfully, my home did qualify for the new construction tax credit, which means I only pay 50% of that amount the first year, 60% the second year...

I think the best tax-credit bang for your buck when buying a home is finding a newly rehabbed home that has already qualified, whether through the current owner or the remodeler, for the historic tax credit, which freezes taxes for 10 years. Of course, who knows what that assessment would be when that 10 years is up. Perhaps, in some cases, the homestead cap works out better, because you can't have the homestead cap and the historic tax credit going at the same time, can you?

[LFF]

Scudder, THANK YOU! Seriously, you have no idea how helpful that was. Thanks a ton for taking the time to help!

helenejen, thank you also. I'll keep this in mind.