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I live in New Hampshire and my parents are retired- so they are looking to buy a house in a smaller community closer to a regional hospital. I am helping them narrow down the best area to move to. New Hampshire is a state that does not have an income tax or sales tax, but has terrible property taxes. Around where they are looking, taxes under $5000 are considered to be good with under $4000 even better on a house under $325K. However, the equalized tax rate is different for every single town. This just adds to the confusion so you literally have to memorize the towns tax rate when looking at new house listing alerts.
What are property taxes like in your area?
Does it have a huge influence about which town you decide to move to?
Discuss...
Well, my property taxes are under $1k per year, on a house valued at about $150k. I think that is pretty great.
It totally does depend on location though. In my parents old house, their taxes were over $6k per year on a house around $500k. However, the house right across the street, which was of similar value, had literally half the taxes. The reason? It was technically in the county, not in the city. It was unincorporated ground. They had access to all the services at half the cost.
The reason we left NY was because of property taxes (also ridiculously high home prices). Taxes on the low end for a small house (1400 sqft, 0.18 acre) are over $6000 for a friend of mine.
Where we live, taxes will be under $1000 for 0.34 acre, 2500 sqft.
Taxes vary greatly from state to state and also each county or city.
In 1991 I bought a small home in NY for 129,000. Taxes were 4500.00. My DH's parents still live in NY and they have been retired for many years. They pay over 10,000.00 per year in taxes. I could never pay that for a place to live. Why would I want a good chunk of my money going to the state? It makes no sense to me. I will move wherever I can to have an overall good quality of life with no stress.
My small home in FL 4 years ago I also paid 4500.00 in taxes.
Now I am in TN live in a new house with 40 acres and pay $112.00 per year. Now that's my kind of price.
Bayonne, NJ (northern NJ 5 miles SW of Manhattan, directly north of Staten Island, directly east of Newark over Newark Bay) -- small 4-room ranch on a 50 x 100 lot, assessed at $135K -- taxes are approx $8200 yearly. They were less than half that when we bought in 1992. And this is -low- for our town, with new construction going up wherever they can fit a house..
Here in southern california, the tax is 1.0%-1.1%, so that's not terribly high BUT about 95% of the houses for sale were made after ~2003, so there's a special assessment tax or mello roos. Those can amount from $1000 to $4000 a year. Of course the houses with lower mello roos/special assessment taxes are rare, so all that's left are houses with yearly combined taxes of around $5000 for a 160k house.
Now I am in TN live in a new house with 40 acres and pay $112.00 per year. Now that's my kind of price.
How remote of a location is this? Do you have high speed internet or DSL?
I considered moving to an area on the Cumberland Plateau in the past but the demographics scared me off a little.
Bayonne, NJ (northern NJ 5 miles SW of Manhattan, directly north of Staten Island, directly east of Newark over Newark Bay) -- small 4-room ranch on a 50 x 100 lot, assessed at $135K -- taxes are approx $8200 yearly. They were less than half that when we bought in 1992. And this is -low- for our town, with new construction going up wherever they can fit a house..
In NH you get a big property tax break if you have a house on a larger amount of acerage. You can put the acerage in "current use" to avoid paying taxes on the land itself.
I don't think a 2000sq/ft house on 25 acres of land with taxes of $4000 is that terrible.
In NH you get a big property tax break if you have a house on a larger amount of acerage. You can put the acerage in "current use" to avoid paying taxes on the land itself.
I don't think a 2000sq/ft house on 25 acres of land with taxes of $4000 is that terrible.
In NJ, there's a farmland assessment provision -- it excludes the dwelling, but significantly reduces the taxes on the land, as long as certain requirements are met (I forget what they are since I no longer work in our municipal assessor's office, and they may have changed since my last class in 2004).
And no, those taxes on a piece of property are pretty enviable.
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