Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are many variables. You could look at it this way - if your property taxes are $1200/month and your mortgage is paid off, a case can be made that you could stay in NJ. This assumes you could afford the $1200/month and do not need the money value of your house to live.
There will always be cheaper places to live. Paying property taxes only for housing might still be affordable for many people.
But I could sell my house in NJ for 400K, buy a similar house down south for 200K, keep the 200K profit in my pocket and still pay less than 1200/month in property tax
Many abandoned houses. My local city is tearing houses down.
I have a friend who owns a large rambling house (well maintained) with two outbuildings. Both outbuildings were used as studios and workshops going back 75 years. In DE or PA his property would be worth 800-900K. Where it is he would be lucky to sell it for 150.
High taxes, no manufacturing, no support businesses = no jobs. People leave when there are no jobs.
My son's friend just bought a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in Southern New Jersey for $110,000. He's blue collar and has worked in various trades, and pretty sure that the house doesn't have any problems.
There aren't many restaurants or stores in the area, but he doesn't care. All of his family members live within 30 miles. He goes to his mom's house one a month for dinner. It works for him.
At the very least, he'll never have to pay much for renovation or repair because he knows how to do that.
Please call me when you can get a 3000 sq ft house in Ridgewood with $1200 a year tax bill for $250,000 and I'll move back.
Didn't you know that you have to "knock down a few gas stations every week" and or be "have connections to corruption" - everyone who's well-off does this in NJ.
As expensive as NJ is (and I'm one who does complain about this enough here), the state does have a lot of good going for it IMO.
But I could sell my house in NJ for 400K, buy a similar house down south for 200K, keep the 200K profit in my pocket and still pay less than 1200/month in property tax
Move to IOWA, you can get a house for $100k, property tax $600. Just hangout with the cows all day.
Didn't you know that you have to "knock down a few gas stations every week" and or be "have connections to corruption" - everyone who's well-off does this in NJ.
As expensive as NJ is (and I'm one who does complain about this enough here), the state does have a lot of good going for it IMO.
Oh, I quite agree that NJ is a great place to live. But as a retiree living on ~$25,000, staying in NJ didn't make economic sense. If I still lived in my house in Paterson (one of those ubiquitous Cape Cods near the Totowa border) I'd be paying a third of my income in property taxes and for what? What good is that 8 grand of taxes going to do for me? Pay for cops that make 3+ times my old salary or a teacher that makes twice as much and complains about being poor. A failing school system and sketchy neighbors very different from the ones I grew up with, would be my big reward for staying. No thanks!
For those folks who might suggest I should have moved or gotten a better job, well I did save a pile over the years, but should I have spent it on a house in Wayne with a $15,000 tax bill? That doesn't make economic sense. You don't need Suze Orman to tell you that living on $12,000 of SS, you're not going to be moving to San Francisco to live in one of the "painted ladies" like the residents of "Full House" anytime soon.
Selling the house in NJ and moving into a new house three times the size suits me just fine. I have, in essence, two living rooms, one with a grand piano in it and the other with a home theater setup. If I still lived in my old house, the piano alone, would have taken up 60% of the old living room's floor space. Just 4 years of tax savings will get me a new Toyota RAV4. What could you do ...with your newly found largess?
Sure, the pizza isn't as good here and Charlotte isn't New York City, but to suggest that life is so much less if you don't stay or live in NJ, is just plain wrong.
Even with the 2% cap on tax increases (ROTFLMAO over that joke!) the feces will hit the fan and you'll start to see prices on housing in NJ stay flat, while the rest of the country's housing increases with inflation close to the CPI. The next big recession and NJ's looming pension crisis will keep prices from escalating to San Francisco levels. Stock up on the Rice-A-Roni though. You might need it when the newly increased tax bill arrives next quarter ...as you know it will!
Last edited by TheEmissary; 09-23-2019 at 12:48 PM..
Even with the 2% cap on tax increases (ROTFLMAO over that joke!) the feces will hit the fan and you'll start to see prices on housing in NJ stay flat, while the rest of the country's housing increases with inflation close to the CPI. The next big recession and NJ's looming pension crisis will keep prices from escalating to San Francisco levels. Stock up on the Rice-A-Roni though. You might need it when the newly increased tax bill arrives next quarter ...as you know it will!
I don't think it's necessarily terrible if housing prices stay flat'ish. But then again I don't necessarily care if I make money on my house (although it would be nice, obv), I just don't want to lose any. The reality is that the rest of country will absolutely appreciate faster as there is more room for growth. Hell, I've only been here 6 years after living in Dallas for several, and Dallas is up ~50% just since I've been gone. I did a double-take when I saw how much my old house sold for. But that city was vastly underpriced for a long time given the number of well paying jobs there.
What will keep NJ's prices from reaching SF-levels is the awful state of infrastructure (particularly transit to NYC, where a 12-mile train ride should not take an inconsistent hour) and lack of true magnet cities (people move here for access to NYC job market, or have an office in the suburbs in a field like Pharma.)
All that said, it's still a pretty nice place to live, and people are willing to pay a premium for the quaint downtowns & leafy neighborhoods, good schools and tolerable commute (OK, barely tolerable). Some other areas outside the NE have it pretty good as well, but they all of have their own issues too. I continue to believe that this is a good area for wealth-building (particularly for 2-income families) and for raising children. But I will not be retiring here.
Oh, I quite agree that NJ is a great place to live. But as a retiree living on ~$25,000, staying in NJ didn't make economic sense. If I still lived in my house in Paterson (one of those ubiquitous Cape Cods near the Totowa border) I'd be paying a third of my income in property taxes and for what? What good is that 8 grand of taxes going to do for me? Pay for cops that make 3+ times my old salary or a teacher that makes twice as much and complains about being poor. A failing school system and sketchy neighbors very different from the ones I grew up with, would be my big reward for staying. No thanks!
For those folks who might suggest I should have moved or gotten a better job, well I did save a pile over the years, but should I have spent it on a house in Wayne with a $15,000 tax bill? That doesn't make economic sense. You don't need Suze Orman to tell you that living on $12,000 of SS, you're not going to be moving to San Francisco to live in one of the "painted ladies" like the residents of "Full House" anytime soon.
Selling the house in NJ and moving into a new house three times the size suits me just fine. I have, in essence, two living rooms, one with a grand piano in it and the other with a home theater setup. If I still lived in my old house, the piano alone, would have taken up 60% of the old living room's floor space. Just 4 years of tax savings will get me a new Toyota RAV4. What could you do ...with your newly found largess?
Sure, the pizza isn't as good here and Charlotte isn't New York City, but to suggest that life is so much less if you don't stay or live in NJ, is just plain wrong.
Even with the 2% cap on tax increases (ROTFLMAO over that joke!) the feces will hit the fan and you'll start to see prices on housing in NJ stay flat, while the rest of the country's housing increases with inflation close to the CPI. The next big recession and NJ's looming pension crisis will keep prices from escalating to San Francisco levels. Stock up on the Rice-A-Roni though. You might need it when the newly increased tax bill arrives next quarter ...as you know it will!
Thanks for your response.
In the end it comes down to having enough monies for a "bad habit" we all have/face - that is that we like to eat.
If you have a well paying job in this area and your kids are in school, then people will continue to pay the high property taxes. However it does not make sense financially for anyone to retire in NJ. I'm still 20 years away from retirement (at least) and can't see myself staying here. I can't even imagine what the property taxes will be 20 years from now.
It depends where you live in NJ when you retire. Sure, close to NYC while paying 10K or over in property taxes doesn't make much sense. We live in Ocean County on the water in a nice 300K house where I swim, fish and boat in the back yard and pay 6,800 in property taxes. 10/15 minutes from many doctors and a 2 hospitals.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
