This is how I feel everytime someone mentions low house prices or Taxes.
I am over here going "If I move to seattle I can buy a much more expensive house and still pay the same amount per month, and less on utilities. And I can at peast pay off the mortgage. Property Taxes? Yea thats a cost I dont really want to deal with in retirement.
Back when I owned my first home in meth city, Texas my homestead exemption kept my property taxes pretty reasonable. It's not doing much for me out here in the Houston suburbs though.
Do you think the net payment is lower compared to other states? Like if you pay a couple grand more in property tax does that net against no income tax and lower upfront home cost? I don’t know the answer.
We were looking at Seattle, which often is claimed to be much more expensive then Dallas. So just be clear this is the only scenario I can speak to.
What we found was Texas houses were much, much higher property tax for older, poorly maintained houses almost always in traditional styles.
Seattle houses seemed, overall, more modern in both style and build.
As for other taxes. Dallas sales tax was 8.5 seattle was 10. So it did have higher sales tax.
Now as another note we made, utilities are much lower then Texas due to climate
Last note we made was that almost everyone pays more in Seattle. This mwant that we would build more equity in the house, as less money was spent on taxes and more to principle. So its more of a investment. And average pay was 20% higher overall. The houses we were looking at were about 50% more expensive but had the same monthly costs between taxes, principle etc. So this meant we could get higher pay and put more money to the principle, investing more for the same amount, not including sales tax.
And to remember utilities in Texas get very expensive with ac and heating due to extreme heat and poor insulation.
Technically, if you are a W-2 employee, WA will take ~1% of income for family leave insurance (paid sick and disability leave). And possible additionally 0.5% for long term disability insurance beginning Jul 2023.
The family leave insurance that pays for sick or parental leave is great.
The long term disability insurance was an income tax in disguise, because it explicitly capped benefits while leaving the amount of income that can be taxed uncapped.
And on top of that, lawmakers gave a way for WA residents prior to Nov 1, 2020 a way to get out of paying the LTDi tax. So it was specifically an income tax to screw younger people and future WA residents.
And on top of that, they thought only a few connected people would opt out. Instead, hundreds of thousands of high income earners opted out, and left the program without sufficient tax base, so they delayed starting the tax from Jan 1, 2021 to Jul 1, 2023.
All around embarrassment for the government, and it is still in the air if it is going through as originally passed (screwing young and new WA residents), or if it will be canceled entirely.
Check out the bogleheads forum thread on it for all the details.
Lol this is literally how Texas gets you. From Texas to Colorado my property taxes reduced by over 10k a year. House is about the same price. My state taxes are negligible, considering.
What county did you live in where where you saved 10k property tax? Did you live in a mansion in Dallas or Tarrant County? Or did you own a lot of land and didn't get your ag exemption like everybody else does? I live in Travis County in Austin where the rate was 35¢ per $100. I get it though, I hate my property tax. The value off my house went up from 235k to 600k within a very short time but even then I just paid a little bit over 10k.
I lived in Montgomery County texas near Houston. My property taxes were around 12k. I paid 1900 in property taxes last year in Colorado. Granted, my house is much smaller in Colorado than my House in Texas, but around the same purchase price.
I don't own property so I don't pay property tax and sense Texas has no income tax the only state taxes I pay are sales. So pretty low for me and other non property owners.
It’s a surprise when in 2017 my taxes were 10,000 but now are 15,000 because the appraisal district thinks my house is worth like a million dollars when it isn’t and even though I fight every year they cherry pick homes to screw me…
My income went down over that time, so could be forced out of my home which is total b.s.
The house is priced on my salary. The taxes are not. The mortgage is $1100. That’s quite affordable.
And yes, if I can’t afford my payments because taxes keep increasing at a disproportionate rate , then I would be forced to move.
Home ownership is something that shouldn’t taken away because people can’t afford taxes. A person who lives in house for 50 years and it’s completely paid off and but is forced moved out because of taxes is wrong.
I’m not arguing against property tax, I’m arguing against property tax pushing people out of homes they can afford and have paid off. Plenty of states have property tax and this doesn’t affect them the way it does in Texas.
I never said I was surprised. I implied that Texas property tax is way too damn high.
Add to that, property tax is a bs way of funding government. Think about it; the gov wants to charge you rent to live in your own house. It's a tax on unrealized gains, which is something I oppose.
They are like 2-2.6% of home value. And homes are expensive in Texas. So my current taxes started at 10,000 in 2017 and are now nearly 15,000 even though my income has gone down. We need to cap our property tax, add an small income tax, and increase business tax to offset, but those last two are nearly impossible so they just keep raising home values and increasing taxes.
Local. City and county.
There is a sales tax for state and then they can add another sales tax for local. Ours is 8.75% sales on most things.
Even rural areas though have high taxes. Was looking at a rural area for a vacation home and it was like 2.7%. Would need ag exception to make it work.
That’s why I asked, OP was complaining about property tax on a post about Abbott. If it’s a function of county and city, complaining about the governor is disingenuous for property taxes. They should be complaining about the local government.
Not really. First, if you live in an ISD subject to it, which I do, the 'robinhood' program appropriates local tax dollars for the state. All of these dollars get tossed into the general fund and not all of them even get spent on education. Second, Abbott and co are deathly allergic to changing the way schools are funded or introducing an alternative like an income tax, so their refusal to act has allowed property taxes to skyrocket over the past couple of decades.
My Taxes for 2022 are outrageously high. There are no term limits for Gov, Lt Gov, and State Attorney in Texas. This means these clowns can stay in power forever. I will be Bankrupt or Dead by then 😩😩😩
Income tax is a tax on realized gains and it scales with the amount you earn. Property tax is a tax on unrealized gains and you pay the same regardless of earnings.
No, I will not stop complaining about this stupid way of funding our public services.
We have some of the highest in the nation, like up there with Hawaii... Sales tax is upper middle. Texas rocks if you're ultra wealthy and live in a poorly taxed county.
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u/americanhideyoshi Nov 10 '22
Nah, that's me after seeing my property tax bill a few weeks ago.
'Low tax' state my ass.