Houston Property Taxes (Austin: sales, homeowners insurance, houses)

[Ray21]

I am plannig to move to Houston Texas (northwest). I hear property taxes and property insurance are high. I live in NY and pay approximately $9,600 per year on property taxes and $1,085 per year for property insurance. Is Houston taxes and insurance similar?

[Dan Corcoran]

Ray, your question won't produce much in the way of meaningful information unless you provide the assessed value of your property. The percentage rate of the assessed value is the important number. Your readers don't know if you live in a $100k property or a $2M property...

[Ray21]

Thanks for the reply. I found the answer to my question on another website.

[uhohraggy]

Hi Ray,

What other website did you find your answer? I am asking the same question.

As to property value.... if you take a property at $150,000 as an example it appears that just about anywhere in the country (CA, CO, AZ, NV, OK, UT, TN, etc, etc) the taxes might range from $1000-$2000/yr, but in TX it appears they run about $5000-$7000/yr.

Hence a $300K home anywhere else would run maybe $2000-$4000/yr, and in TX $10K-$14K/yr.

What's the rationale for the exorbitant property taxes? Is there no sales tax and no income tax in TX?

Thx

[Just Lookin]

I have been trying to figure out their taxes also. It blows me away when the realtor sends me the information. I guess I am going to have to take a part time job to live there. I hope I can hang on. That is a lot of money.

There is sales tax but not income tax.

[Joboo]

I pay 15k/year in property tax, have a 6% marginal state tax rate, and pay 6% sales taxes. I am actually looking to move to Texas

[UtahDarkHorse]

Texas has no personal income tax but as a result, Harris County (Houston and surrounding area) has one of the highest property taxes in the nation. There are several bills that have been proposed this year to solve some of this but it's probably not going to change the status quo much.

[brickboy240]

Do NOT be fooled by the no state income tax thingy!

Yes, this USED to be a fairly inexpensive place to live, but that has changed. Our property taxes are outrageous and getting worse.

Its not the tax rate...in fact...ignore this when trying to figgure out our property tax situation. The politicians have not raised our property tax RATE since about 1998...that much is true. Where they're killing us is with these county appraisal districts that keep raising our property appraisals, which the tax amount is based on. The county appraisal districts raise their rates anywhere from 6-10% every year. In the last 3 years, I have had 7-8% appraisal increases! The cap on yearly tax appraisal increases is 10% andI know several people that see a 10% increase in value every year!

If you figure that most companies give you about a 2-3% pay raise every year, but the appraisal district hits you for 6-10%...yes...it does not take a PhD to figure out that pretty soon, we will not be able to afford our houses!

Add to this situation, the fact that while the politicians are elected...the appraisal board folks are not...guess what...you cannot vote the *******s out of office for too many tax increases. So the politicians can say they're for lower taxes and crow on about how they have not raised your tax rate since 1998, but the appraisal boards have done their dirty work and jacked our home values through the roof while the politicians sit in the no responsibility zone. Nice, huh?

You CAN protest the appraisal increases, I have done so and got a 7% increase knocked down to a 3% increase (I have not improved the house one bit in the last year, BTW), but you're really just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic if you ask me.

There is a small bunch of conservatives that are fed up and trying to get the TX legislature to put a statewide cap on appraisal increases to 3%, but it hardly got any traction in the last session. There is a huge lobby that courts the pols. in Austin to keep the appraisal rate cap at 10%, so the little voices get drowned out by the wealthy connected lobbyists and no lowering of the appraisal cap sees the light of day.

I'd find another place to live. Don't let the no state income tax fool you into thinking it is cheap to live here. I don't know if we'll be able to afford to retire in Texas, as the property tax problem is getting worse and nobody seems interested in stopping it.

This is a terrible situation...not many outside of Texas know about this but I am native that is here to tell you its the gospel truth. They're taxing us right out of our homes and thats no lie!

- Brickboy240

[Jewels36]

We own a home in the Houston area valued around $155,000. Our property taxes for last year were $4300 and our homeowners insurance was $1800 (included in this total are windstorm and elective flood insurance). This should help give you somewhat of an idea.

There is no state income tax in Texas but there is, of course, sales tax. We currently live in KY where we do have state income tax. We still come out cheaper in KY even with the state income tax. The property taxes and insurance rates here are much cheaper.

I think the property tax rates in and around the Houston area range from about 2.8% to above 3.0%. Make sure to homestead your property first chance you get. This will lower your taxes.

[shannon94]

Originally Posted by Bound for Texas

I have been trying to figure out their taxes also. It blows me away when the realtor sends me the information. I guess I am going to have to take a part time job to live there. I hope I can hang on. That is a lot of money.

There is sales tax but not income tax.

What's with the worry over taxes? I only pay 2600 a year property tax. My friends that are still in California pay way more than that.

There is no STATE tax.