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Having lived in northern New Jersey most of my life, and now in the desert southwest, you have to look at the living situation in New Jersey as spatial distribution. Each small unit of local government (average square miles per municipality) is costly. My friends from college and high school still live there, as does my sister. My friends live in Wayne/Pequannock, and will joke to me that I can go "down the street" and see MS-13 gang graffiti (I live in Southern New Mexico). The city I live in is over 80 square miles. In contrast, 1 out of every 3 municipalities in New Jersey are less than 2 square miles apart. So, I joke back that they can go "down the street" as well, in their case, to Paterson, which is about as far from where they live as to an area within my city, where I live, that's very depressed. I live in a rather affluent neighborhood in my city. So in terms of spatial proximity, my drive to a less desirable area in my city is about the same as Pequannock to Paterson. However, I am still in the same municipality. My friends then claim "we have layers of insulation and protection, and you don't".
This distinction of home rule and smaller municipalities lends itself to racial and ethnic segregation, unwittingly. My kids just graduated from a high school that's very ethnically diverse. Growing up where I did (West Caldwell) I lived in a snow-white district (late 1970s early 1980s). Where I was raised was less than 10 miles from East Orange. I run in my neighborhood with my dog in the desert about 5 miles a day. That means I pretty much run through Caldwell, Verona, and into Montclair. My daughter and I went on a 13-mile hike a few months ago just outside of my city in an unincorporated area. I think you get the idea.
This form of home rule is not by accident. The residents that drew these arbitrary boundaries, many, many years ago had their reasons for doing so. They wanted to be with their own. My friends and my family think that's a good thing. They are willing to pay that price in the form of higher taxes. I personally don't think it's a good thing. But that's just me. Everyone is going to have their own very strong opinions on why it is. And that's okay.
I retired to NJ for a few reasons. 3 of our grandchildren live in our town. I feel like my RE taxes are benefitting them through their schools. My SS and pension is not counted toward my NJ state income tax so I don't pay any. I wanted a quiet environment with a larger piece of land and more privacy than I could afford in NYC, which I got here. There are very good amenities close to where I live as well as excellent health care and hospitals. There's so many trees where I live, it is very green, which I like. My house is worth less than $400K, so my RE taxes are $6200, which is a wash with NYC RE taxes because of lower utility costs here and no state income tax for me.
My childhood 3 bedroom 2 bath home, on 0.2 acres just sold in a Middle Class suburb of Boston for 800k. (Randolph)
In 2019 the 800k home, assessed at 634.7k had $6,500 in property taxes.
In 2013 when it was sold for 429k and assessed at 287.5k, the property taxes were $3,710.
An exact replica of my childhood home was sold in Summit NJ for about the same price in 2020. It was 950k. The property taxes were 19k a year.
A colleague of mine has a meh townhome thing in New Brunswick asses at 218k, and the taxes are way north of 6k a year.
That is wild.
Not that you tolerate it, sure services are phenomenal there. But how do you people literally afford it?
Last edited by masssachoicetts; 06-04-2021 at 11:45 AM..
I don't think it's as much "we tolerate high property taxes!" as "what choice do we have to live within commuting distance of the largest high-paying job market in the western hemisphere?". As others have noted, tax burden is roughly the same across the metro area, so unless you just want to leave (which, of course, many people end up doing) you don't really have a choice. It's not like some tea party revolt against some perceived tax boogeyman will actually do anything of substance. Consider:
- This is one of the most expensive parts of the country, so cops, teachers, firefighters, civil servants etc. all need to be paid more to be able to afford to live here (look at horror stories from the bay area where teachers needed to commute 2+ hours away because they could not afford to live any closer)
- It is the most densely populated part of the country, so things like routine road maintenance is much more difficult to do here, given overall congestion
- A corollary to the above, those maintenance workers also get higher salaries due to cost of living, and the cost of shipping raw materials here is more due to congestion, material storage, etc.
- We need to fund a transit system that people can afford to use given number of workers commuting into the city. Due to density, roads would be even more of a nightmare if that didn't exist
I would consider the above "it is what it is" and are contributing factors to the higher tax rates. The "elephant" in the room, of course, is that many towns are teeny tiny and would be consolidated with their neighbors in other parts of the country. But, we all know that is a political atom bomb that will never be touched. We can't even agree to rebuild two crumbling train tunnels to Manhattan that literally prop up the North Jersey housing market!
This is about 10 years dated, but Westchester Magazine came out with an interesting article on taxes. They actually have it worse than us with all of their little village/township arrangements, but I'm assuming a lot the same themes apply to NJ:
This distinction of home rule and smaller municipalities lends itself to racial and ethnic segregation, unwittingly. My kids just graduated from a high school that's very ethnically diverse. Growing up where I did (West Caldwell) I lived in a snow-white district (late 1970s early 1980s).
how is where you live now less segregated? it sounds like you likely live miles away from diversity.
i think the reality is that it just isnt so simple to arbitrage your living situation to places with lower taxes. there are a lot of factors involved but probably nothing more significant than the fact that this area is where you were raised, what you know, where you job is, etc. id imagine most NJ residents either grew up here or grew up in NYC or if they moved to the area they either had a family situation or best job offer. its not so easy to just pack up and move to where the lowest cost of living happens to be at the time (and that could change anyway).
i know for me, this is where i was born and raised. i also have a job situation that i wouldnt likely be able to replicate elsewhere.
how is where you live now less segregated? it sounds like you likely live miles away from diversity.
i think the reality is that it just isnt so simple to arbitrage your living situation to places with lower taxes. there are a lot of factors involved but probably nothing more significant than the fact that this area is where you were raised, what you know, where you job is, etc. id imagine most NJ residents either grew up here or grew up in NYC or if they moved to the area they either had a family situation or best job offer. its not so easy to just pack up and move to where the lowest cost of living happens to be at the time (and that could change anyway).
i know for me, this is where i was born and raised. i also have a job situation that i wouldnt likely be able to replicate elsewhere.
Yep. Even the richest man in NJ eventually came back after a stint in Florida.
My childhood 3 bedroom 2 bath home, on 0.2 acres just sold in a Middle Class suburb of Boston for 800k. (Randolph)
In 2019 the 800k home, assessed at 634.7k had $6,500 in property taxes.
In 2013 when it was sold for 429k and assessed at 287.5k, the property taxes were $3,710.
An exact replica of my childhood home was sold in Summit NJ for about the same price in 2020. It was 950k. The property taxes were 19k a year.
A colleague of mine has a meh townhome thing in New Brunswick asses at 218k, and the taxes are way north of 6k a year.
That is wild.
Not that you tolerate it, sure services are phenomenal there. But how do you people literally afford it?
NJ is a one party state and as such enjoys the tax burden voters place on the others who find the tax rate intolerable, based on incompetence and fraud, legal and illegal.
That someone comes here from NYC and finds NJ's taxrate tolerable is no reason to accept the tax rate in NJ given the fraud, incompetence found primarily at the municipal level...not to exclude the state bureaucracy's swamp.
'Those living in New Jersey will pay on average a grand total of $931,698, well above the $827,185 for Massachusetts'
NJ must be known as the country's brain trust given the amount of money squandered on EDU.
But the state's (NJ) steep education costs are another big factor. “The cost to educate a pupil in New Jersey is one of the highest in the country,”
So, NO, the perennial losing half of NJ's electorate does not tolerate our 7th place, 2021, of highest taxed states?
To keep the rest of us quiet they have provided 'elections' in this one party state as an outlet for our frustration.
Outsider audit of municipalities would be the best place to start to eliminate the fraud and incompetence found to be so prevalent. A microscopic look there, would reveal the threads leading to source of county and state financial pathologies.
NJ is a one party state and as such enjoys the tax burden voters place on the others who find the tax rate intolerable, based on incompetence and fraud, legal and illegal.
That someone comes here from NYC and finds NJ's taxrate tolerable is no reason to accept the tax rate in NJ given the fraud, incompetence found primarily at the municipal level...not to exclude the state bureaucracy's swamp.
'Those living in New Jersey will pay on average a grand total of $931,698, well above the $827,185 for Massachusetts'
NJ must be known as the country's brain trust given the amount of money squandered on EDU.
But the state's (NJ) steep education costs are another big factor. “The cost to educate a pupil in New Jersey is one of the highest in the country,”
So, NO, the perennial losing half of NJ's electorate does not tolerate our 7th place, 2021, of highest taxed states?
To keep the rest of us quiet they have provided 'elections' in this one party state as an outlet for our frustration.
Outsider audit of municipalities would be the best place to start to eliminate the fraud and incompetence found to be so prevalent. A microscopic look there, would reveal the threads leading to source of county and state financial pathologies.
Feel free to move if you like.
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