[kthai417]

I currently live in Okemos (about 10miles from Lansing downtown). I am looking to move out of Okemos (mainly due to the high property taxes, I do not benefit from the public school anymore since all the kids are out of the house). So i want to move to a property with lower property taxes (preferably less than $2k/year) but yet not being in a sketchy neighborhood.

Anyone know of an area/neighborhood around lansing (within 15-20miles) that is decent but with lower property taxes? I try googling for a map of the property tax rates surrounding lansing but no luck.

Any help thoughts are appreciated.
Thanks.

[michiganbob]

Lived there a few years back and the property taxes were (at least at that time) lower than a lot of places around Lansing. The drive up M-99 is actually not bad most of the year.

You can get some statistical information from the City-Data.com main site. Each city listing shows "Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units" and should give you a basic idea. The Michigan average is supposed to be 1.3%. Many cities in the Lansing area are or above 2.0%. (ER is 1.4%)

Overall, my experience has been that any of the smaller towns outside of Lansing will likely have lower property taxes than the direct suburbs (Okemos, Haslett, Holt, Grand Ledge, DeWitt, etc). You may find even lower property taxes in the townships between some of those smaller towns. Then again, you get what you pay for and the services available may not be what you are used to.

[kiki63]

There is not a really easy answer to this question since PRop A. It adds a layer of confusion to the whole thing.
Townships are held to a lower tax by law, but as you have experienced in Meridian Township, that is not the whole story. Okemos has a rather large school bond (as does DeWitt, Holt, and Lansing) Other things to consider: services are a direct result of taxes. Leslie I think has one of the lowest taxes in Mid-Michigan, but they have virtually no services (including police). Generally Eaton County has lower taxes because the voters do not support Public Transit (so limited bus) and other such programs, so Eaton Rapids, Delta Township, Potterville, Charlotte all are in that county. Of course now is a good time to buy, hard time to sell--just remember if you end up in an area with low taxes, the community may vote to raise their taxes to fill gaps in the budgets created by the dropping property values!