First Post - Our relocation back home... (Long)

[Jherbst]

Did you say that your mortgage went up by $750.00 a month on a 190K home for taxes? We are considering a move there and I thought the taxes, although expensive would raise our house payment by around $300.00 a month. We want to purchase a home around that same price. The BIGGEST reason we want to move there is because of the home prices, however don't want to be in the same boat because I am paying that much in taxes.

[lh_newbie]

Originally Posted by Jherbst

Did you say that your mortgage went up by $750.00 a month on a 190K home for taxes? We are considering a move there and I thought the taxes, although expensive would raise our house payment by around $300.00 a month. We want to purchase a home around that same price. The BIGGEST reason we want to move there is because of the home prices, however don't want to be in the same boat because I am paying that much in taxes.

I took it they bought a more expensive home AND have a higher tax bill:

Originally Posted by Taranis17

...If you look at it strictly from a monthly mortgage payment perspective, the difference in mortgage and taxes between WA and here eats up about $8400 of that $13,000/yr raise I mentioned earlier....

Due to the lower cost of housing here, many folks move to Dallas and buy a home that is 2x the size of their previous home. Many folks from California move from a $500K, 1800 sq ft 3/2 that had $5K/year in taxes. They move into a 3300 sq ft home they paid $350K for, but have $8750/year in taxes - so the comparison isn't apples to apples. If someone moved from a higher real estate value area and bought a COMPARABLE home, they would have comparable taxes but a much lower mortgage bill. Generally, what I see with folks moving into Dallas is that they buy a larger home which still somewhat lowers their cost of living, but just as Taranis17 stated, they are increasing their quality of life.

I would suspect that Taranis could have bought a home comparable to their WA home and cut their mortgage bill tremendously. Instead, they made the decision to get more home. Taranis - correct me on this if I am wrong. If this is the case, what would be the incremental mortgage + tax bill if you were to move into a home comparable to your NEW place if you were to buy the same thing in WA?

Brian

[Taranis17]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

I took it they bought a more expensive home AND have a higher tax bill:



Due to the lower cost of housing here, many folks move to Dallas and buy a home that is 2x the size of their previous home. Many folks from California move from a $500K, 1800 sq ft 3/2 that had $5K/year in taxes. They move into a 3300 sq ft home they paid $350K for, but have $8750/year in taxes - so the comparison isn't apples to apples. If someone moved from a higher real estate value area and bought a COMPARABLE home, they would have comparable taxes but a much lower mortgage bill. Generally, what I see with folks moving into Dallas is that they buy a larger home which still somewhat lowers their cost of living, but just as Taranis17 stated, they are increasing their quality of life.

I would suspect that Taranis could have bought a home comparable to their WA home and cut their mortgage bill tremendously. Instead, they made the decision to get more home. Taranis - correct me on this if I am wrong. If this is the case, what would be the incremental mortgage + tax bill if you were to move into a home comparable to your NEW place if you were to buy the same thing in WA?

Brian

You are correct.

Old house:

Manufactured home, built in '99, 1200 sq ft, 3 bed/2 ba
Taxes: $1700/yr

New house:
Stick-built, brick exterior, built in '99, 2512 sq ft, 3 bed/2 ba
Taxes: $5100/yr

Lot size on both are roughly the same.

We paid about $30,000 more for this house than we did for ours in WA two years ago. Now, consider that my house in WA was $168,000 when I bought it. A comparable home here would be about $120,000 .... maybe. I never looked for a manufactured home here because I will never[ own a manufactured home again. The washer on spin cycle shaking the whole house should answer any questions about why. And it was a nice house too, not a trashy place with paper thin walls like the older 80's style ones.

Housing here really is less expensive. BUT, if taxes were the same between the two states, our mortgage would be roughly $1400/mo. Not bad. Throw in taxes, and that bill goes up to about $1700 a month. Big difference in our budget. And again, we bought twice as much house.

Hope that helps.

Someone posted the Dallas county tax site here that was invaluable when we were looking for a house and calculating a mortgage payment:

DCAD: Find Property By Street Address

If you're going to be in Dallas county and looking to buy. I highly recommend you look up the taxes on that address, because they do vary.

[Taranis17]

Originally Posted by Jherbst

Did you say that your mortgage went up by $750.00 a month on a 190K home for taxes? We are considering a move there and I thought the taxes, although expensive would raise our house payment by around $300.00 a month. We want to purchase a home around that same price. The BIGGEST reason we want to move there is because of the home prices, however don't want to be in the same boat because I am paying that much in taxes.

Sort of, but we bought twice as much house too; mustn't forget that. Our old mortgage was $1080/mo. This one will be $1700ish. If the tax rate were equal, it would've only gone up about $400.00. Big difference in our budget between $1400 and $1700 a month.

YMMV, however.

[destin04]

Welcome to Texas! I loved your post! The best part is...once you are settled in you will have a great state to discover!

[jjsnyder]

Have to remember you don't pay state taxes. The property taxes make up for that. If you didn't have a homestead exemption your property tax would be a little higher than your state taxes. You will always be ahead in TX.