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If you want reasonable property taxes look in NC at Asheville or Boone. Mountain areas with lots of culture, arts, mild four seasons, and plenty of reservoirs.
If you want reasonable property taxes look in NC at Asheville or Boone. Mountain areas with lots of culture, arts, mild four seasons, and plenty of reservoirs.
I've been to NC and it's beautiful there. But mostly, I couldn't get over the people. I've never met such polite, respectful and helpful people anywhere before. It was kinda of a shock to my system.
But, as much as I love NC, my grandkids are in NY and I'm trying to stay within an hour or so of traveling time.
Last edited by Lauriedeee; 03-20-2012 at 11:15 AM..
I've been to NC and it's beautiful there. But mostly, I couldn't get over the people. I've never met such polite, respectful and helpful people anywhere before. It was kinda of a shock to my system.
But, as much as I love NC, my grandkids are in NY and I'm trying to stay within an hour or so of traveling time.
I hear ya. It would drive me nuts to be around polite, respectful and helpful people all the time. They'd expect me to act the same way, probably.
Just bear in mind that on holidays, you have to allow time to line up for the bridges to Staten Island.
I come from north Jersey, and when I'm flying down the Parkway on a holiday after visiting my mom, the traffic backed up onto the Parkway from the Outerbridge amazes me.
I hear ya. It would drive me nuts to be around polite, respectful and helpful people all the time. They'd expect me to act the same way, probably.
Just bear in mind that on holidays, you have to allow time to line up for the bridges to Staten Island.
I come from north Jersey, and when I'm flying down the Parkway on a holiday after visiting my mom, the traffic backed up onto the Parkway from the Outerbridge amazes me.
hmmm.. traffic, I forgot about that..
but, getting off this island is awful on holidays anyway. Traffic is so backed up heading into NJ and even the other way, heading toward the VZ bridge.. Does everyone have to visit grandma in Bklyn on holidays? sheesh..
Traffic heading to the jersey shore in summer is horrendous too. It looks like a mass exodus.
but, getting off this island is awful on holidays anyway. Traffic is so backed up heading into NJ and even the other way, heading toward the VZ bridge.. Does everyone have to visit grandma in Bklyn on holidays? sheesh..
Traffic heading to the jersey shore in summer is horrendous too. It looks like a mass exodus.
so I'm used to traffic.
Yeah, I moved down to Monmouth County from Bergen County two years ago, and I told my elderly mother not to expect to see me in the summers. The Parkway is HELL in summer, and I'm not doing it. Fortunately, it didn't take me long to find the back roads to avoid the beach traffic when I have to go to the store or something. And I found the beaches where the locals go.
I hear ya. It would drive me nuts to be around polite, respectful and helpful people all the time. They'd expect me to act the same way, probably.
Just bear in mind that on holidays, you have to allow time to line up for the bridges to Staten Island.
I come from north Jersey, and when I'm flying down the Parkway on a holiday after visiting my mom, the traffic backed up onto the Parkway from the Outerbridge amazes me.
thats something i dont miss from my living in brooklyn days. well, there is almost nothing i miss from those days. i still commute into brooklyn, but traffic is pretty minimal. nothing compared to what id hit coming back on weekends.
I noticed that some areas have much lower taxes than others. Lacy, Bayville, Brick, and I think Toms River homes on the lagoons didn't have huge property taxes. I don't recall offhand but I've got those areas saved on my home search page.
I also noticed that the homes that don't have the 'wow' factor outside had lower property taxes than their neighbors.. which makes sense to me as a NY'er. Where I am now my neighbor who has the same house as me, same inground pool, same property size pays more in property taxes than I do.. they went up after he put in those fancy brick pavers in his driveway, and re-sided his house.
Maybe I'll look into homes that need a little bit of work.. NJ doesn't send inspectors inside homes to see what updates you've done, do they?
I'd say the location of the house (i.e., the county and the specific town) is primary in determining how high or low the property tax rate is, as well as determining property values/home sale prices. In general, houses will be more expensive and with higher property taxes in north east NJ because of the proximity to NYC. But I hear that Connecticut and Massachusetts have comparably agita-inducing taxes (MA is called 'Taxachusetts') so at least we're not alone (small consolation, I know).
Of course, if you want to own an enormous million+ dollar mansion, your taxes are going to be high regardless of where in the state you live.
In general, towns in South Jersey including some of the shore towns tend to have lower property taxes than North Jersey (for more info on South Jersey towns you might want to try the South Jersey forum...this general NJ forum is a bit more North Jersey centric). But even with the lower taxes on the one hand in South Jersey, I think for some of the shore towns you might have higher homeowner insurance rates? That's an assumption on my part...not sure.
You can Google "NJ.com by the numbers" and get average property tax info by town, for each of the 566 towns in NJ. You can download a CSV (Excel) file to view this data at a glance. I just downloaded it myself and attached it to this post (it's inside a zipped folder at the bottom of this post...first time I've ever done this here so I don't know if it will work).
Before attaching the spreadsheet here, I sorted the data in ascending order by average yearly tax bill. The average yearly tax bill for all towns is $7,758.20. The 3 lowest average yearly tax bills are $513.59 for Walpack Township (Sussex County), $1,360.82 for Camden City (Camden County), and $1,464.13 for Woodbine Borough (Cape May County). The 3 highest average yearly tax bills are $19,988.60 for Millburn Township (Essex County), $22,296.74 for Tavistock Borough (Camden County), and $22,714.72 for Loch Arbour Village (Monmouth County).
You'll see in the last column with the heading "Change from 2010" that taxes in all towns went up anywhere between 66 cents to $2,810.40. Ninety-nine towns show a decrease from 2010 but that's not a sign that property taxes (i.e. the tax rates) went down. The property tax rate will never go down for any town. It's likely due to property tax appeals by many individual home owners. But a property tax appeal only brings your taxes down for a few years. Your taxes will still go up every year and then you'll be back to where you started.
I don't put too much hope in that 2% cap either. Whatever that really even means.
Again, the only way to lower your taxes (temporarily) is to get a property tax appeal (to lower the assessed value of your home).
Other than that, if you meet certain income limits, you may qualify for the NJ Homestead/Property Tax Rebate (which has been drastically slashed in the past couple of years; honestly, I see this going away altogether with things going the way they are).
I'm a life long Jerseyan. I would love to spend my golden years here in my beloved home state, gumming my food and hollering at the neighbor kids to get offin mah lawn!!!, but I don't think that will be feasible. Not unless I hit the Mega Millions (which I lose every week, by the way).
Dang it.. I just made a long post and I lost it.
So, I'm making this post short just in case CD flakes out on me again.
seque5tra, thank you so much for all the work you put into your post! It's very informative and much appreciated.
We don't qualify for the senior freeze, and we're not disabled vets, and if the Homestead rebate relies on income.. I doubt we'd qualify for that either.
There are so many homes for sale. I've been watching the housing market and even though they're lowering the price of the homes, they're just not selling. There's got to be a point where elected officials realize they're taxing the people right out of the state. It's happening in NY too.
Well, hope you find something that works for you in Jersey. Don't forget to stay in touch on this forum and commiserate with us about the NJ tax burden. It's a favorite activity of ours.
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