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I would say what you're paying in taxes is extremely low for Buffalo suburbs. Personally I don't know anyone who pays that little even after STAR. The lowest I know is family I have in KenTon who pay $4200 on a house worth about $100-120k. Another point to note is the likelihood of appreciation. Although the Baltimore/DC market is slowing/slowed if someone bought property there today what would there LONGTERM appreciation be versus WNY. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't recommend DC area to anyone for saving money but if someone was given a great job opportunity in both places I wouldn't necessarily rule out the area. I was just backing the other poster who said that Buffalo isn't all that cheap.
I think it is a matter of perspective. I think what helps the Buffalo area is that you can live in a decent area for a pretty affordable price, whereas if you find a relatively affordable suburb in many other areas, it is most likely not a liveable to many. For instance, if you had to choose between, Lackawanna, East Cleveland or Prince George's County inside of the beltway, which one would you pick? Personally, I would pick Lackawanna based on the fact that crime is lower and is below the national average, there are still some nice parts of town and while it is probably the least desired of the suburban districts in the Buffalo area in terms of schools, you could still get a good education there if a child wants to. I think that's another way of looking at things.
I would say what you're paying in taxes is extremely low for Buffalo suburbs. Personally I don't know anyone who pays that little even after STAR. The lowest I know is family I have in KenTon who pay $4200 on a house worth about $100-120k.
Kenmore & Tonawanda are among the highest rates in the area, right there with the worst of Lackawanna, Cheektowaga & parts of West Seneca. Depending on if you are actually in Kenmore or Tonawanda your taxes could be anywhere from $3700/$100K to $4500/$100K.
Clarence is $2K-$2600 per $100K
Most of the City of Buffalo is under $3K/$100K
Alden, Aurora, East Aurora, Colden, Boston, Concord, Holland are all under $3k/$100K
Most of Orchard Park is $2500-2700/$100K
Eden is around $2K/$100K Sardinia has areas under $2K
I can understand someone willing to pay more in taxes because they want to live in Amherst, Williamsville, Orchard Park (and these people are typically not the ones crying about taxes because they knew what they were getting into). What I don't get is why someone would pay among the highest taxes in the area to live in Cheektowaga or West Seneca?
Anyone that would willingly pay $4600/$100K to live in West Seneca when they could live in South Buffalo or pretty much any part of Hamburg for much less, needs to have their head examined.
I think WNYer's are pretty neighborhood specific in that where they grew up and went to high school is where they end up living, or there's older people who will die in the house they bought in 1960 before they will move to another area. Amherst/ Williamsville/ OP might have a lower rate but at the same time in the desirable areas you probably won't find a house for anywhere near 100k. Maybe some of the Southtowns are cheaper because people are afraid of Southern tier driving (snow and all the traffic getting there during rush hour).
My example was also pretty generous at least as far as Maryland taxes are concerned (though I'm not sure about No Virginia's rates). Realistically, if you owned a $300K house in Baltimore County your taxes would be $3300 not $1500 - $2000. With that in mind, if you purchased a $150K house here & paid $5K/yr in taxes it would still take 75 years of paying taxes before you matched what you originally paid for a $300K house.
$150K will get you a damn nice upper middle class house in most of metro Buffalo ............ you would be lucky to get a house in the ghetto for that price in most of DC/Baltimore.
I know what you are saying about the attitude toward the Southtowns. Personally, I love it but people I know from North Buffalo & Northtowns think I'm insane for living here. You would think we got 300" of snow/year the way they act.
If I had to choose between those 3 I would jump off the Peace Bridge. Or I would move to SC. Columbia SC, that's cheap.
LOL....Yeah, SC is pretty cheap and my mom is from there. Unfortunately, it is probably the most violent state in the US and the schools are suspect in many parts of the state.
Columbia is nice and is growing a bit. Not as much as Upstate SC, which is centered around Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson and Clemson.
If you have ever watched "Gangland" on the History Channel they just had an episode that featured Columbia, SC. I believe they said Columbia had over 20 known street gangs in operation, that's unreal for a city of 120K. It didn't paint a very pretty picture.
fyi Columbia has a much lower violent crime rate than Buff. but whatever just a joke anyway.
Really? Are you sure you don't mean Columbia has less crime (which is no great surprise since the city of Buffalo is over 2x's bigger than the city of Columbia)?
Per Sperlings ........
Violent crime
Columbia 8
Buffalo 7
Property crime
Buffalo 7
Columbia 6
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed
2006 MSA crime reports (as reported by the FBI) .......
BTW, you call this winter? Nuts. Chicago has it worse.
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