Property Taxes? (Chicago, Elgin, Schaumburg: sales, assessors, how much)

[ScottJ]

Can someone give me the skinny on property taxes? I'm from California where property taxes are pretty much standard across the state. What are property taxes in IL? Do they vary much by community?

Thanks,

[Union Proud]

Usually 2.25 to 2.5 % of value. Example the village says my house is worth 275k. Take the value and multiply .025 will equal $6,875. Most of that goes towards the school system. Not exact, but is the best I can explain it.

[Scout371]

Property taxes are INSANE here. I also lived in CA for 5 years and taxes were reasonable. I have lived in the mid Atlantic region and taxes were very reasonable, and the schools were excellent. Then we moved to a suburb of Chicago. All I can is OUCH!!! Not only are the taxes high, but they are assessed unfairly. I have fought my taxes every year I've lived here, I've won 3 out of 5 times. But they are still too high. When the housing market crashed and the house prices dropped dramatically, we were still assessed at a much higher value for two years in a row. The assessors office actually was telling me my home value was increasing!!! We bought our home for around $400K and have never paid less than $11,200. I don't mind paying taxes, they are necessary. But to pay so much for what I can see is very little value in return; it kills me to write that check every year. Now the schools for the most part are very good, but they're not great. And everyone around here thinks their school district is the best. But when I moved here from the mid-Atlantic region, I paid 1/5 of what I pay now and the schools offered foreign language and violin beginning in the 2nd grade. That is completely unheard of around here, I think it begins in the 6th grade. This is just my opinion, I think a lot of people around here would disagree with me. But that is because if you grew up around here, that is just what they are used to. Overall I feel my children have received a good education, I just feel for the amount of taxes we pay (and incidently 67% on my taxes go to my local school districts), the schools could be a little better. The cost of living is also high here, but then it is in CA as well. Incidently, Chicagoland has the third highest property taxes in the nation, just behind New York and New Jersey.

[chet everett]

I cannot disagree that there are some rather high property taxes in the region and the difficultly in finding out both the likely direction of taxes and the "value" one gets for those taxes is quite a challenge.

The fact is that towns with a high average home price will tend to have lower tax rates. Similarly those tend to have the better performing school districts , nicer parks, more responsive local governments... The ability to deduct local property taxes from income taxes is also a nice plus for higher income tax payers.

The various exemptions that allow older folks / those with smaller income to get a break on taxes means that buyers really need to pay careful attention to homes when they are shopping to avoid surprises come next cycle.

I much prefer our system of having local units of government be responsible for their own levies. When one cedes that control to the lawmakers in the state capital the inevitable result is that quality declines and costs rise.

In Illinois the various means of increasing local revenues, beyond property tax, are a legitimate means for some towns to have rather low property taxes. The biggest factor is the local portion of sales taxes -- this give an edge to towns with large amounts of retail space and significant taxable goods - services.
Amusment taxes, hotel taxes, and even various kinds of telecom taxes give towns like Rosemont, Oak Brook , Schaumburg, elk Grove Village and others relative bargains...

[JohnRoxy]

I just bought a home here!!! OUCH is right! I will be paying 3% more here than in my last state. Where is this money going?

[ccjarider]

One of reasons we left IL was the 25% increase in property taxes in one year. They almost doubled from 08-11. Be careful moving to IL as they have to find ways to finance excessive government pandering and pensions systems that are whoefully underfunded for public employees.

There is no nirvana anywhere and we all have to pay taxes to support a functioning society but in IL, the machine thinks nothing of bending you over and---(well you know the rest).

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but you should know what you are getting into.

[knitgirl]

Originally Posted by Pauljrnicole

I just bought in Kane county from Utah!!! OUCH is right! $16,000 is robbery. I paid $2,700 on the same home value there. That is a 3% increase. Where is this money going?

That must be one helluva house! Those of us who live in long established neighborhoods pay part of the cost of extending city water and sewers to new subdivisions like yours. My taxes in Elgin are less than $6,000. I don't know how much you are paying for the Burlington schools your kids will be going to. I pay close to $2,500/yr to U-46 and I don't have, never had, never will have children. I also pay about $200 for Elgin Community College which I consider a worthy expense. The library district is excellent, especially the main library on the east side. The city of Elgin owns the Hemmens which provides a lot of entertainment option throughout the year. There is a terrific park along the river that your kids may enjoy in the summer, along with swimming pools on both sides of town.Part of my taxes goes towards clearing snow in the winter and historically Elgin has done a terrific job. My parents live in Roselle. Last winter I went to visit them 2 or 3 days after a moderate snowstorm and was appalled at how bad the roads in the middle of town were. Kane County has a very good forest preserve system, they recently bought some land to prevent the county from becoming endless sprawling suburbia once new housing starts being built on the west side of the county.

[pvande55]

Taxes are lower in Cook County for the same assessed valuation. Many properties are still assessed at the same value as at the peak of the boom, further aggravating the situation.

[cubssoxfan]

My home is not assessed at the same value, it has gone down the last reassessment. However the tax multipliers have increased resulting in far less of a reduction than one would hope for. IDN if it has changed, but Cook reassesses certain parts of the county every year (instead of the entire county every year)and it each home owner is reassessed every 3 years.

[sarabeth1111]

HI,

First of all, property taxes are all over the place in Chicagoland. I live in Dupage County and not only are the property taxes here far higher than Cook County (city of Chicago, Schaumburg, etc) the village I live in has the highest tax rate for Dupage County. It is absolutely outrageous.

We all know about the housing bubble though, and well, when the tax assessor's report claimed my property values had gone up, Oh, I don't think so. Of course I appealed it!

Now my new house, well, they valued it at over $300,000, but I bought this house from the bank and paid under $100,000 for it, so in my appeal, I included my closing statement, which they accepted as the current market value, and immediately agreed to drop the assessed value accordingly. Yes, that means I got my taxes reduced dramatically, and no, I didn't hire anyone to do it for me either.

the trick is that there's usually only a very small window of opportunity, or time, to file that appeal, from the time they send out your annual assessment. In my village, they send out the property value assessments in September, and you have until October 11th to file that appeal.

Now, I also appealed the assessments for 3 other properties, my old house and the homes of a couple of my neighbors. Without any recent sales, the assessor's office was willing to compromise a little, but not enough, so I took our cases to the county review board, and Even though I had no clue what I was doing, feel I did present a strong case, which was both valid and fair, and think I have a good shot at winning this..

Won't get the decision from the review board until this coming March though, and there's always next year. I didn't really know what I was doing this year, just thought I'd give it a try. For next year though, I'm studying up and have already started preparing detailed analyses. I'm an accountant, so I'll be analyzing it to death.

It's probably too late to do anything about your tax assessment for this coming year, but I recommend you start studying up for next year as well. The process varies even from county to county, so go to your local county's website for instructions, and honestly, the preliminary paperwork for an appeal was pretty easy to do.

In fact, the only reason I never did it before is because when I first bought my first house and moved to this village, I just called the tax assessor's office to complain about my first tax assessment based on my purchase price, and they agreed to lower it over the phone. seemed pretty reasonable at the time, so I never had any real reason to actually file an appeal, until now.

That's where I suggest starting. Good luck!