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After nearly a year of attempting NH and loving everything about the state including the 'Live for or Die' mentality, I honestly do not see us surviving financially. I had even taken someones advise and rented, but it's not for me as I've always owned and prefer to do so.
Winters do not bother me, but the inability to pay bills does! I think my forewarning to anyone considering the move would be to really look into cost of living. I was mostly warned about winter.
It has been a strange experience and I am very disappointed that it didn't happen for us.
Tough financial situations are never fun, so my condolences. Where did you live before you moved? My family moved from the DC area, so NH is cheap in comparison. Still, we may relocate at some point for lower COL.
Tough financial situations are never fun, so my condolences. Where did you live before you moved? My family moved from the DC area, so NH is cheap in comparison. Still, we may relocate at some point for lower COL.
OH. Real estate taxes are lower and where we lived, not assessed at 100%, we had income tax and sales tax but not on food. Though we paid sales tax on cars our annual tag/plates only cost $40-50. I also paid for private education for 2 children. We are making more here but not enough to own a house. I was prepared for higher cost of living but not the increase in real estate for comparable housing. We are looking at double the cost for anything remotely similar in quality and maintained. We have seen houses in deteriorated condition just to avoid higher tax assessments. If we bought a house, I wouldn't have enough money to enjoy the no sales tax. Glad the neighboring states and tourist do. Not as free when it comes to taxes and fees as I thought it would be.
Your commute sounds like a nightmare! I would never have chosen to live so far away from a job....wow. How do you do it?
On the weekends, I work a 9am-5:30pm shift. Then on weekdays, it's usually noon to 9pm. So I don't really hit any heavy traffic. Otherwise, I really really LOVE my job in Boston. And I always am always looking at NH job listings, but so far nothing close to what work Boston offers in my field.
It's outrageous that my town wants us to pay a $1K a month for the privilege of living in their town in a 1920's 4 bedroom Dutch Colonial house with a tired roof and a kitchen from the 1960's. What kills us is an attached swimming pool room paved with river rock on the sides... which we keep empty because we can't afford the propane to keep it heated. But our town assessor (who btw lives an hour north of us) considers that pool room to be "living space" and that doubles the amount of living space on our property. And that's what our assessment is based on. My boyfriend is talking about knocking down this addition. I think that technically, if we were to bulldoze the house and the swimming pool room and replace those structures with a tiny one bedroom house, we would then have a reasonable property tax. So that solution might be in our future.
The pluses of our property is having 10 acres of open land that is mostly fenced in by chainlink fence. And we have a giant garage, and a small stable with two paddocks. Our dogs are extremely happy running around out back in one paddock. The other paddock protects our vegetable garden from deer. We are told that our garage has $65K worth of concrete in its foundation. We estimate that there is $90K worth of chainlink fencing. All thanks to a prior owner, who apparently left our town in a fit after over newly arrived property tax bills (he also owned two commercial properties on our street).
In the two years we have "owned" this house, we have wanted to replace the roof on our house, but have been unable to afford to. And that makes our home owners insurance premiums high. We'd also like a nice kitchen, but again, we can't afford to buy new appliances. Meanwhile, the town keeps valuing our property higher and higher, and at over $100K than we paid for it. Thank goodness our place doesn't have a lakefront, thank goodness we don't have a "view".
And we will never use the town's school system, since I am 57 years old. So yes, count me in as someone who would greatly prefer a state income and sales tax IF that would lower OUR tax burden. And it does upset me to see so many vehicles with MA plates shopping at our big box stores. IMO the taxing structure of NH is way out of wack. And rather than punish homeowners, the amount of tax requested should be more fairly collected and reflective of the state and town services used.
P.S. Our neighbors next door have a tax bill that is $6K. They have two teenage sons. One son failed to graduate high school last spring. This school year, we see a yellow school bus that takes him all the way over to Dover for his retake of his senior year. Why should our taxes be paying for that?
Because in-ground pools are considered luxury items and (unfairly) taxed by towns accordingly, it makes sense that an attached, indoor pool (whether in use or not) would be highly taxed. Does the room have a separate heating source, and could this be removed, making it non-heated living space? You may want to ask the assessor about this, but keep in mind that the towns loves the taxes they're getting from you (especially as childless owners, it's a win-win for them). It may be worth looking into, though.
You mentioned that you've got 10 acres of open land. Is the entire parcel 10 acres, or is the house/garage/stable on additional land. It would be great if you could put 10 acres into current use--this would REALLY help with your tax burden. Unfortunately, the fencing may restrict that tax benefit as well, but again, it's really worth asking about. The tax bill should be showing you the value of each of your structures-perhaps it may be worth demolishing the stable if you're not planning to have any animals or use the stable in any way. Just a thought...
Count me in as one of those who would prefer a sales tax vs. the high property tax, but the state is in hungry, hungry mode these days and taxes/fees have been on the rise (we are NOT a tax free state). Any politician who tells you that your property tax bill would go down if they put a sales tax in place is flat-out lying. Sales taxes would benefit the state, but not the individual towns, especially those without a huge commercial base and big box stores. You're a ways from getting an elderly exemption (usually starts at 65) but most towns have income and asset standards that must be met to claim the benefit, usually in the form of a reduction in assessment, and graduating to a higher reduction by tier (in my town, the tiers are 65-74, 75-79, 80+).
Quote:
Originally Posted by miu
It's outrageous that my town wants us to pay a $1K a month for the privilege of living in their town in a 1920's 4 bedroom Dutch Colonial house with a tired roof and a kitchen from the 1960's. What kills us is an attached swimming pool room paved with river rock on the sides... which we keep empty because we can't afford the propane to keep it heated. But our town assessor (who btw lives an hour north of us) considers that pool room to be "living space" and that doubles the amount of living space on our property. And that's what our assessment is based on. My boyfriend is talking about knocking down this addition. I think that technically, if we were to bulldoze the house and the swimming pool room and replace those structures with a tiny one bedroom house, we would then have a reasonable property tax. So that solution might be in our future.
The pluses of our property is having 10 acres of open land that is mostly fenced in by chainlink fence. And we have a giant garage, and a small stable with two paddocks. Our dogs are extremely happy running around out back in one paddock. The other paddock protects our vegetable garden from deer. We are told that our garage has $65K worth of concrete in its foundation. We estimate that there is $90K worth of chainlink fencing. All thanks to a prior owner, who apparently left our town in a fit after over newly arrived property tax bills (he also owned two commercial properties on our street).
I'm sorry to hear this, as I know that you were out looking at property and has asked about new construction costs awhile back here. This is why I suggest to anyone relocating that they try to rent before buying--the cost to live here is so much higher than many other areas of the country. Less than the DC area, and of course out west, but if you're from down south or the mid west, property prices are beyond the reach of many.
We made the decision to return to New England after several years living in the St. Louis area (originally from Mass). Our house in Missouri was a beautiful 4-bedroom, nearly new-construction home, 3 car attached garage, walk-in closets, the perfect home. We paid less for this beautiful home than we sold our home for in Massachusetts. However, when several years had passed, the call of New England (home, to us) was too strong, and we made the decision to return. We were shocked to learn that the home (that we had built and lived in for less than 10 years) was on the market. For DOUBLE what we sold it for! We somehow managed to find a house with indoor plumbing and an intact roof, nearly 50 years old that we could afford. Yes, we took many steps backwards to get back to New England, and the ONLY reason we did is because we missed being HOME. The ocean, the lakes, the ocean. The call of these things (plus both of our families were here) was too strong to resist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dnbnv-n
cannot see how anyone can afford to live here.
After nearly a year of attempting NH and loving everything about the state including the 'Live for or Die' mentality, I honestly do not see us surviving financially. I had even taken someones advise and rented, but it's not for me as I've always owned and prefer to do so.
Winters do not bother me, but the inability to pay bills does! I think my forewarning to anyone considering the move would be to really look into cost of living. I was mostly warned about winter.
It has been a strange experience and I am very disappointed that it didn't happen for us.
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