Can someone explain property taxes to me? (Pittsburgh, Washington: sale, 2013)

[theta_sigma]

I've been a homeowner for 8 years and I still don't understand how this works in Allegheny Co./Pittsburgh.

When we bought our home in 2007, nothing happened to the assessment. Nothing continued to happen (except one year randomly it went down?) until 2013 when reassessment happened to everyone. Because of windfall laws, my actual tax bill has barely changed in 8 years.

Meanwhile, my parents bought their home in 2003 (also City of Pittsburgh), the school district instantly pounced on the purchase price and sued them for thousands of extra dollars in taxes.

I'd like to not have this be a discussion of the evils of taxes because like a good liberal I believe that paying my taxes is my civic duty. However, I'm also trying to buy a new house right now and trying to figure out how much I can spend given that I will also be paying my taxes into escrow every month. You can snoop on past and current tax assessments and payments of any house in the county easily online and it's not clarifying anything. Why was there a difference between what happened to me (no reassessment upon sale, no increase of taxes) and what happened to my parents (tripling of taxes based on sale value)? Is it just a given that upon sale of a home, the assessment will automatically jump to the sale value (or close to it)? Because I see a lot of evidence of that not happening in the records, but I also see evidence of it happening as well.

I know the millage rates for the City and a couple surrounding municipalities, but given that the actual tax bill is based on assessed value, that's not really helpful. It's the seeming randomness of the assessment that is flummoxing me. Can anyone shed any insight here?

[Moby Hick]

We bought in 2003 and got set upon right away also. Part of it depends on the politics of the time, but part of it is how long the person before owned the house. That is, if the previous owner bought it in 1960 and it was never reassessed since, the sale price is likely to be far above the previous assessment and thus taxes will go up after a sale because the assessed value is supposed to be actual value, except from only a few years ago.

For planning purposes, you should figure you will be assessed at close to the price you pay for it. Maybe 90 to 95%.

[UKyank]

Everyone I know that has bought a house in the past 5 or so years has had their assessment challenged to their purchase price (even if the reassessment already raised the propert tax & the sale occurred before that which makes 0 sense), so I'd just plan my taxes around the purchase price.

[theta_sigma]

Well that's depressing. That, like, doubles a monthly payment on a ~$180k house.

I won't complain about taxes generally but this is a regressive tax and I reserve the right to gripe a little.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by theta_sigma

Well that's depressing. That, like, doubles a monthly payment on a ~$180k house.

I won't complain about taxes generally but this is a regressive tax and I reserve the right to gripe a little.

Here's a calculator. https://smartasset.com/taxes/pennsyl...tor#KOZoEtyhTx

Your gripe is precisely why many choose to leave Allegheny County and pay almost half in Washington and Butler County, and approx. a quarter less in Beaver County...along with getting a lot more house for the $$$.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by theta_sigma

Well that's depressing. That, like, doubles a monthly payment on a ~$180k house.

I won't complain about taxes generally but this is a regressive tax and I reserve the right to gripe a little.

Are you sure you're going the math right? Or maybe you have a really big down payment. But otherwise it isn't that much. There's the homestead exemption, for one thing. Also, the 2% discount for paying early (which mortgage companies do). If you have a house in that range, your property taxes will be about $3,600 to $3,800 or so. Your principle and interest payment will be quite a bit higher if you have a 20% down payment.

[theta_sigma]

We're probably doing a 30% ish downpayment. Do all the local municipalities do the Homestead Exemption? Right now I'm coveting a house right across the border in Reserve Twp and as little as I know about Pittsburgh taxes, I know even less about how they do over there. Their property taxes are higher, but wage taxes are lower so it sort of comes out in the wash but I don't know what the other policies are there at all. I've always lived in the city.

I mean, it's all still cheaper than renting but dang.

[Goodjules]

I live in Crafton. We pay separate borough, county, and school district property taxes. All together quite a large sum. But, you get a lot of house for your money here. Home prices in some of the nicer suburbs outside Allegheny County are significantly higher. My point is that you need to do the math. In my case my mortgage is low, but property taxes are high. I have a friend in the South Hills whose home is worth more than double what mine is worth, but she has low property taxes. Our actual monthly housing costs are about the same.

[RogersParkTransplant]

There are some really sweet houses listed in Reserve township right now...

FWIW, we bought our house in 2013 and our taxes have been reassessed once, but it only made about a $30/month change to our monthly bill, so I thought it was fair. In the end it comes to about $1000/month for the mortgage and close to $300/month for taxes, up from about $250/month when we bought the place. I guess if I think about it that seems like a lot, but I've never lived anywhere half as nice as this house, and I was paying over $1400 to rent a truly crappy apartment in my big city student days, so I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting for my money. The easy, relaxing 12-minute bus ride to the heart of downtown is worth a lot to me, as is the view from the deck.

[bluecarebear]

Keep in mind that local municipalities and schools can raise taxes at any time and for any "project". We don't get to vote on levies like other states. I would receive letters notifying me that mils (taxes) were going to be increased. It's one reason why I enjoy renting.