The Joys of Property Tax

[ziggy29]

First, the good news from the 2009 property tax assessment we received in the mail today: the appraised value of our home itself is unchanged from 2008.

The not so good news: They jacked up the appraised value of the land by about 75%, apparently across the board for everyone in town. Last year the appraised value of my land (nearly 1/2 acre) was about $12,200. This year it's nearly $22,000.

Net result: Overall appraised value up 12.5%. And the more land you have, the more you're screwed, at least in the city limits. People with a very small, cheap house on a lot of land may have seen the appraised value jump by 50%. (It's limited to a 10% jump in taxable assessment per year, but that's a lot of years of locked-in 10% tax increases.)

Yeah, I think I could get 12.5% more for this house than we could a year ago. Riiiight.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Well at least you don't pay state income tax right? Crooks all of them.

 

[W2R]

I lived in Texas for 13 years, and Texas has a lot to offer (despite the chiggers, scorpions, rattlesnakes, hurricanes, blistering heat, brown recluse spiders, and so on, which should keep most of you from even considering moving there). I love the down to earth and independant attitudes of the Texans that I knew, and hey, I'm an Aggie so there is that (need I say more). I love the wildflowers in Central Texas and I love the fact that the state is bigger than its reputation in so many ways.

However, I remember how high the property taxes were in College Station. They were unusually high even for Texas because we lived in a wonderful school district. Therefore the school taxes were tremendous, although my daughter got a wonderful education so I won't complain.

But I would not want to live there in retirement due to the high property taxes, and due to the unrelenting summer heat with no rainfall, at least in College Station.

Here, they are jacking up the millages because they say the houses aren't appraised as high as they once were. Like I believe that.. not. Then once the millages are sky high, the housing market will recover so the appraisals will rise, and the parish will be really flush.

 

[ziggy29]

But I would not want to live there in retirement due to the high property taxes, and due to the unrelenting summer heat with no rainfall, at least in College Station.

Of course, if you have a high income and live in a small, cheap house, it's still a very favorable state for taxes (especially if you're also LBYMers who don't buy much taxable stuff).

As for brown recluses, I seem to recall that the area you're considering a move to is just about ground zero for those things, aren't they?

 

[W2R]

Of course, if you have a high income and live in a small, cheap house, it's still a very favorable state for taxes (especially if you're also LBYMers who don't buy much taxable stuff).

As for brown recluses, I seem to recall that the area you're considering a move to is just about ground zero for those things, aren't they?

Only under rocks, or so I read on city-data - - and you know everything you read in a forum is gospel, right? In Texas, we had them wandering all over in the back yard, but truthfully, the doctors there were used to treating their bites so even if I had been bit I would not have been too worried about it.

Aren't all houses in Texas cheap? Housing prices there are seriously low! The problem is that the property taxes are so high that you might as well be paying rent.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Only under rocks, or so I read on city-data - - and you know everything you read in a forum is gospel, right? In Texas, we had them wandering all over in the back yard, but truthfully, the doctors there were used to treating their bites so even if I had been bit I would not have been too worried about it.

Aren't all houses in Texas cheap? Housing prices there are seriously low! The problem is that the property taxes are so high that you might as well be paying rent.

I think Texas is one of those places its better to own than rent in this housing market. Including property taxes

 

[FIREd]

The not so good news: They jacked up the appraised value of the land by about 75%, apparently across the board for everyone in town. Last year the appraised value of my land (nearly 1/2 acre) was about $12,200. This year it's nearly $22,000.

Maybe they found out that y'all are sitting on a huge oil field...

It's only a matter of days before we receive our 2009 property tax assessment... Hum, I wonder what dirty trick they're going to pull to justify increasing our property taxes this year.

 

[W2R]

Aha! That city-data post may have been wrong (perish the thought!).

From brown-recluse.com,

The highest concentrations of Brown Recluse spiders are found in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. As an example of their abundance, a 75 minute search of a barn in Missouri yielded 40 spiders. One study in Missouri found the Brown Recluse spider in 70% of the homes that were sampled

OK... thanks! It's good to go into a relocation with one's eyes wide open.

 

[REWahoo]

OK... thanks! It's good to go into a relocation with one's eyes wide open.

...and a well-tuned spidey sense.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Ugh! I was doing yard work for the inlaws the other day. Grabbed the pitchfork. Something big and black ran across my hand. Black Widow. My spider sense failed me

 

[bbbamI]

We got our notice and our property appraisal dropped by about $8k. This means we'll pay about $200 less in taxes this year.

On the buggy side, I've got five chigger bites on my legs....I got them in AR.

 

[ziggy29]

Ugh! I was doing yard work for the inlaws the other day. Grabbed the pitchfork. Something big and black ran across my hand. Black Widow. My spider sense failed me

Odd. Did you use the pitchfork to lift or move a log or a rock? Seems like you'd usually see this when you move things like logs and rocks, because they usually hide there.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Odd. Did you use the pitchfork to lift or move a log or a rock? Seems like you'd usually see this when you move things like logs and rocks, because they usually hide there.

Nope she had the egg sac( at least I think thats what it was). It was hanging in the middle of the handle opening. Just leaning up against some plywood.

 

[Poundkey]

We got our notice and our property appraisal dropped by about $8k. This means we'll pay about $200 less in taxes this year.

We were actually home when the tax appraiser came through our neighborhood. I led her around the house letting her take pictures of cracks in the foundation and a 30 year old roof that I had patched here and there. Even though appraisers aren't allowed to enter a residence we also told her about various issues inside. Kitchen floor, etc.
End result? Tax value was lowered by $550. This is in Ellis County. Nice area. All 3-2-2 brick or bigger, fireplace, rear entry garage, underground utilities.
I really had my hopes up.

 

[bbbamI]

Sorry to hear about that Poundkey.

Your house/area sounds like mine, except I'm in Collin County. I was quite surprised by the drop, but since we'll be here for quite a while, it means less money out of our pocket...at least for this year. We've lived here 15 years and I have never seen an appraiser.

 

[Amethyst]

First, the good news from the 2009 property tax assessment we received in the mail today: the appraised value of our home itself is unchanged from 2008.

The not so good news: They jacked up the appraised value of the land by about 75%, apparently across the board for everyone in town. Last year the appraised value of my land (nearly 1/2 acre) was about $12,200. This year it's nearly $22,000.

Egad Ziggy, for a moment I thought you meant your tax was $22K.

We own one home and one rental town house, and the combined property tax for them last year was $15K. I live in dread of the bills that will come this July.

 

[haha]

The not so good news: They jacked up the appraised value of the land by about 75%, apparently across the board for everyone in town. Last year the appraised value of my land (nearly 1/2 acre) was about $12,200. This year it's nearly $22,000.

Be happy Ziggy. In Seattle a 50'x50' superfund site would be appraised at 10x that.

Ha

 

[Sue J]

Ziggy, our property appraisal did the same thing, the house value dropped but the land value increased. Luckily it only raised our taxes a small amount. But how does that happen? How did the land suddenly jump in value while housing prices have dropped and real estate sales are stagnant?

 

[Moemg]

Property taxes are the good and bad news about Florida .They can appraise your house for whatever and if you are homesteaded your tax bill can only increase by 3% . The bad news is you can live next door to the exact same house and pay wildly different tax bills .

 

[audreyh1]

In my Texas home-on-wheels (which is not currently parked in TX) - taxes are license registration - $199 per year.

Hmmm - bugs - there was a black widow spider inside the power pedestal at the last campground near Little Rock, AR. Usually you have to watch out for wasps when you lift the lid on those things.

Audrey

 

[W2R]

year|assessed value|property tax
2003|$16,000|$1019
2004|$16,000|$947
2005|$11,320|$436
2006|$11,320|$404
2007|$12,390|$551
2008|$16,000|$864

Our parish gave us a special break in property tax assessments in 2005-2007 (after Hurricane Katrina).

But in 2008 assessments had to be re-evaluated, as is required every four years by state law. Most people ended up with a higher assessment and paid a lot more for taxes last year than in 2004 before Katrina.

I don't know why mine was lower instead of higher in 2008, compared with 2004! I guess the millages are less.

The house value went up, but the land value went down. Maybe it had to do with the Katrina flooding in my neighborhood, even though my house has never flooded.

We are really lucky to have such low property taxes here, with $7,500 subtracted from the assessed value for our homestead exemption (but our sales taxes are very high).

 

[Notmuchlonger]

year|assessed value|property tax
2003|$16,000|$1019
2004|$16,000|$947
2005|$11,320|$436
2006|$11,320|$404
2007|$12,390|$551
2008|$16,000|$864

Our parish gave us a special break in property tax assessments in 2005-2007 (after Hurricane Katrina).

But in 2008 assessments had to be re-evaluated, as is required every four years by state law. Most people ended up with a higher assessment and paid a lot more for taxes last year than in 2004 before Katrina.

I don't know why mine was lower instead of higher in 2008, compared with 2004! The house value went up, but the land value went down. Maybe it had to do with the Katrina flooding in my neighborhood, even though my house has never flooded. We are really lucky to have such low property taxes here, with $7,500 subtracted from the assessed value for our homestead exemption (but our sales taxes are very high).

Look at those low property taxes! And you want to leave that quaint Orleans maam

 

[W2R]

Look at those low property taxes! And you want to leave that quaint Orleans maam

I know, I must be nuts! But our homeowners' insurance makes up for it.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Oh hey forget about that insurance thing...

 

[W2R]

Oh hey forget about that insurance thing...

Oh yeah, GOOD idea.... better forget that flood insurance too, right?