property tax rates by city? (Minneapolis, St. Paul: sales, houses, buy)

[tobytobe]

does anyone know of a website I can look up property tax rates by city? I am mostly interested in the southern/western suburbs, a reasonable commute from Bloomington. I've noticed Lakeville seems high and Eden Prairie seems low. If no website exists, can anyone give me any info? I would rather be in a good school area, but I would like to live in the lowest property tax area if possible. I would like a newer area, but as long as houses are updated I'm flexible.

[Qwerty]

Try this:

Property Tax Calculator

You can put in the cities you want and the house value you want and come up with an overall property tax. I put in a $300,000 house in Lakeville, Apple Valley, Rosemount, Eagan. Eagan comes up the lowest by a couple hundred dollars, the rest are all pretty much the same.

It's kind of a fun site-I just added one for Bloomington, Minneapolis and St. Paul-YIKES-Minneapolis is over a $1000/year MORE for the same value house, Bloomington and St. Paul are a couple hundred more/year.

[tobytobe]

i think i just figured it out.. it's not that the rate in eden prairie is lower, but it seems the houses hold their value there more, so the assessed rate is more in line with the house price? maybe i should be asking what areas hold their value the best. it seems that the houses in prior lake were great prices, but their last tax bill was insane. I saw a house for like $275 assessed at like $450 so the tax bill was something like $5,000.

[Qwerty]

That is a tough question to answer because it really is going to vary by individual house. We haven't seen a big decrease in the overall tax valuation in our house and I think the south metro for the most part has held pretty strong comparatively. A lot will also depend on how many recent sales a property has had. If you have a 20 year old house with original owners you won't see a property tax valuation that is all that much out of line with sale prices today but if you have had a house that is 20 years old and has 4-5 sales in that time, the tax valuation gets adjusted each time. If that last sale was in 2003-2004 that number is going to be VERY skewed because that was the peak of the market.

If you buy a house for a lot less then that tax valuation, you can have your property reassessed and adjusted so I would not worry too much about that tax valuation now.

[tobytobe]

ok this made no sense to me, but i read it to my fiance, and he's like OOOOHH. so THANK YOU this answers my question!