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School taxes can make a big difference, and some counties appear to have a high variation. For example, a house in Drexel Hill, a Philadelphia county PA district, had about 10K property taxes on a 300K home. That is over 3%, but the map suggests 0.9% county wide. Or maybe I am missing something here. Maybe there needs to be a standard deviation added as well.
neg, I hope not! Dark as a percentage of home cost might not be so bad if housing prices are low.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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The tax rate, can be increased dramatically (as much as 50%) by voter-approved state/local assessments for things like schools, sewer improvements, parks etc.
If the study is only giving the base tax rate, it can be very misleading. Also, when you buy a home based on low taxes, you may find a big increase in the property value jumps it up. Ours, for example, went up over $100,000 in value for 2015, which is going to increase our taxes by about $1,000 next year. Oops, I guess it's this year now.
School taxes can make a big difference, and some counties appear to have a high variation. For example, a house in Drexel Hill, a Philadelphia county PA district, had about 10K property taxes on a 300K home. That is over 3%, but the map suggests 0.9% county wide. Or maybe I am missing something here. Maybe there needs to be a standard deviation added as well.
neg, I hope not! Dark as a percentage of home cost might not be so bad if housing prices are low.
What you're missing is that these are not tax rates, but rather self-reported taxes paid. As you're probably aware, many localities cap yearly increases so the amount of property tax that long-time residents pay could be significantly less than what new homeowners would pay for the same or similar properties. Consequently, I don't believe that this chart would be a useful tool for a retiree to use when contemplating where to move. Looking at official tax rates would be much better in this instance.
What you're missing is that these are not tax rates, but rather self-reported taxes paid. As you're probably aware, many localities cap yearly increases so the amount of property tax that long-time residents pay could be significantly less than what new homeowners would pay for the same or similar properties. Consequently, I don't believe that this chart would be a useful tool for a retiree to use when contemplating where to move. Looking at official tax rates would be much better in this instance.
While I agree with you to a certain extent, it is really hard to get down to a real micro view of property taxes until you actually get to the 2-3 areas that you might want to relocate to.
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To a certain extent, you do have some control over what you pay for property taxes. Purchase a home that is below the mean property in the community. My property taxes are about half of what they list as average and I am pretty happy with it. In a few years, when I turn 65, that amount is frozen.
It would be a more meaningful comparison if it were reflected as a percentage of the property's assessed value, not actual dollars paid. This is basically just showing average property values throughout the country.
You can chose to view the map as either dollars (averages of course) or percent of house values. I guess tax amount lags behind full market value. I know in my county the assessment comes every 8 yrs, so market values could go up or down during that time. Luckily they have been either steady or up a little. Nonetheless the map does show hot spots. I will also point out that the map is for the 2007-2011 period which was a rough one for the housing market.
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