counties beyond city limits (Pittsburgh, Washington: purchasing, schools, property tax)

[villageidiot1]

Originally Posted by fivecrazykitties

We are considering moving to Pittsburgh to retire in the not to near future. I work in the health field so I need to stay close (for commuting) to the city but I don't want to live in the city. What are some good neighborhoods outside the city limits to consider? I'm in the market for homes priced ~$150k, low taxes but in a decent school district (for resale valve), average community income $60K-100K. I would like to avoid homes in communities that have associations.
thanks
Catherine

Originally Posted by fivecrazykitties

Thanks for the comments. But I don't want to be in the city limits, Allegheny county. We have been search Westmoreland county. Any thoughts on that area?

Originally Posted by fivecrazykitties

looking at the different real estate sites & city-data.com, Westmoreland county seems to offer the most for the money I am willing to spend. thanks for the heads up about traffic. Being I am still in the research stage and don't know where I will be employed, downtown Pittsburgh is a central point of reference. I'm currently driving 50+mins to go 20 miles. Traffic will suck no matter where I live being a need to be near a city for work.

Originally Posted by fivecrazykitties

I want a home to retire in. than gas prices won't be an issue. why not live outside of the county?

Couple issues here. First, you want a house to retire in but you are concerned about resale value. Second, you "need to stay close (for commuting) to the city," but you don't know where you will be employed.

There is some information missing here to make a recommendation. Why is "downtown Pittsburgh is a central point of reference?" The only reason that I can guess why this would be true is if you are looking for a job in the health consulting field with one of several firms that are located in downtown Pittsburgh.

If you are looking for any other kind of healthcare position, you could end up finding it anywhere in the Pittsburgh region. Wouldn't you want to find the job first before you make a decision on purchasing the house you plan to retire in?

[Stijl Council]

Originally Posted by fivecrazykitties

But I don't want to be in the city limits, Allegheny county.

One disconnect people seem to be having with your posts is that in most large cities the city and the county are more or less the same, even if the city extends a little beyond the county lines. (Chicago/Cook County; Atlanta/Fulton County; etc., etc.)

That's not the case here. Most of Allegheny County is not Pittsburgh; much of the county doesn't even feel remotely urban. And Allegheny County has 43 different public school districts, each of which have different school taxes.

What you will NOT find is a middle-class area with low taxes (less than $1500 or so per every $100K home value) and a good commute into town. Doesn't exist.

[gg]

Originally Posted by Stijl Council

What you will NOT find is a middle-class area with low taxes (less than $1500 or so per every $100K home value) and a good commute into town. Doesn't exist.

You can certainly find homes with tax rates of $2000 per $100K of value compared to around $3500 or $4000 per $100K. Also, they pay 6% tax on goods including if you buy a $20K car. All these taxes add up.

[Stijl Council]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

You can certainly find homes with tax rates of $2000 per $100K of value compared to around $3500 or $4000 per $100K.

Nationally, $2000 is significantly above average -- the national average is, depending on where you look for stats, in the $1200-$1400 range. You can get higher or lower relative to the regional average, but you cannot get "low" in absolute terms in the Pittsburgh metro.

Taxes are always going to be higher in more urbanized areas, and I personally don't have a problem with the property taxes around here, but I'm also not someone for whom "low taxes" were one of the major criteria on which I was looking to buy.

[gg]

Originally Posted by Stijl Council

Nationally, $2000 is significantly above average -- the national average is, depending on where you look for stats, in the $1200-$1400 range. You can get higher or lower relative to the regional average, but you cannot get "low" in absolute terms in the Pittsburgh metro.

Taxes are always going to be higher in more urbanized areas, and I personally don't have a problem with the property taxes around here, but I'm also not someone for whom "low taxes" were one of the major criteria on which I was looking to buy.

We aren't talking about "national" averages. We are talking about Pittsburgh metro. It is WAY cheaper outside of Allegheny County, so yeah, it is LOW in comparison to the relevant area.

[fivecrazykitties]

I consider $2-4K as low property taxes

[gg]

Originally Posted by fivecrazykitties

I consider $2-4K as low property taxes

That is per $100K of home value. Hmm, in this case I might have to explain in better detail. No offense. If your home is worth $200K, you would have to double those numbers and your taxes would be $4K a year in Westmorland or $8K a year in Allegheny County. Of course these numbers are general examples. There are higher and lower taxes in both counties, but everywhere in Westmorland would have lower taxes that Allegheny. We have wildly high school taxes here and our county taxes keep going up, so at some point taxes for everyone in Allegheny County will probably be from $4K-$6K per $100K of value. That is when the pensions are kicking in for the teachers and that money will be coming from somewhere.

[fivecrazykitties]

No need to explain. that % is also called millage rate. which I can & have found on the tax collectors websites.
not only do I have to consider the property tax than school taxes need to be added, maybe an incorporated village tax. Municipalities also have their taxes to add on. And don't forget..fees & surcharges. a politically correct way to add another tax.

[Hopes]

Village tax? There are no villages that tax in Pennsylvania. Villages have no authority.

There are three types of property tax: county, municipality (township, borough, city), and school district.

That's it.

[greg42]

Another way of putting it is there are no areas of Pennsylvania that do not have a municipal level government. Even the most remote rural area has a township government. The denser areas tend to be organized as boroughs or cities instead. There is a component of property tax at that level as well as the school district and the county.

That said, even within Allegheny County I don't think it is common to be paying north of $4000 on a $150k house. Might be right around that level in many spots but not too much higher. So I would think this is not necessarily a reason to discount some choices within Allegheny.

I find myself in the camp of thinking that you shouldn't limit yourself to the surrounding counties. One might reasonably assume that closer in would be too expensive or that you couldn't get close enough to cut your commute time significantly, but both of those assumptions are generally false in this area. I thought the early suggestion for Ross/West View was a good one. It puts you fairly centrally located which might give you a wider range of reasonable commutes when considering where to work.

Now if what you're looking for really is a rural setting, then certainly it will be easier to find in the surrounding counties, although it's not impossible to find within Allegheny. I would suggest Butler County as a few others have mentioned, since there is again a significant savings in driving commute time to be had (assuming a commute to the city). Parts of Beaver County where it borders Butler are also rural and would use the same routes.