Bluegrass Lass

We pay about ~1% in our county, which is about $2k on our 1750sqft house. My mother's only around ~.5%, so she's paying the same amount on a house twice our size (she's in the next county over)...lucky biatch that she is.

Okachickima

These figures make my $148 per year seem not quite so onerous.

Englishtart

We are paying almost 4k a year on our 2160 sq ft home this year...they went up cause they are building a new High School.

I hear that property taxes are lower in SC...but we will be renting there and still paying the prop tax here until we can sell it

scrubbedexpat097

I'm glad I'm out in the boonies in the old part of the county!

Englishmum

Last year our taxes were just under $13,000

Just think...more than $1k per month to have the bins collected, fire, police and schools. The schools are supposedly the best in the state though, but no longer use the school system. I would like to sell the house but will hang on for another couple of years or so and will probably leave the US but perhaps buy a little flat or else our son will be homeless lol!

We pay extra for sewage and if you want to use the town pool in the Summer - only open daily in the school hols - it's about $300 per family.

We have a very modest house (3 bedrooms) but the land is worth more than the house on top of it (approx third of an acre). There are some fabulous houses in our town and I've seen annual taxes on realtor's pages in the region of $90k (occupied by Wall St banking types, CEOs etc).

A portion of our taxes goes to the inner city (Newark, NJ) where there are many social problems.

The next town from us, Maplewood is in the same county (Essex) and their taxes are even higher yet the schools are not rated as highly. They have no 'rateables' eg. factories, hotels, shopping malls etc. so all taxes are raised by homeowners.


(I had to ruefully smile a couple of weeks ago when reading the Sky news readers comments about not having their rubbish collected in the recent bad weather....one said "I pay more than 1500 pounds a year in council tax, it's disgusting!" I wish.....)

Sally Redux

Bins are extra here, some people are trying to save money by taking the smaller bins and putting their excess trash in mine, and local dumpsters

Englishtart

Trash pickup is extra here too, have to pay a quarterly charge of around $50

Sally Redux

Didn't we have a similar thread to this a while back and ended up comparing what we didn't get for our money?

Kaffy Mintcake

I just looked up our property taxes. We pay about $3600/year. We live in a suburb with many corporate locations however and get some pretty good deals as a result.

You can join the rec center for $40/year for a family, $75 if you want access to the outdoor pool in the summer. Recycling and trash are included with our taxes, as is leaf-pick up in the fall and brush pick-up the rest of the year. We also have free concerts and severely discounted fees at the local public golf course if you play. Our school district is in the top 10 for the state.

Not bad all in all. I'll take it.

kins

I roll my eyes at those stories too. We have no rubbish collection at all and pay over $6k a year property tax. On the other hand we have an excellent snowploughing system

My BIL pays over $40k a year property tax in Greenwich CT.

AmerLisa

Orangepants

Yes - SC taxes are really low but that's because we dont get any services! We don't have street lights, road markings, garbage collection and we have our own well/water system - not sure if this is because we're on the lake and therefore considered out "in the country". I think we paid $1700 last year for 4000sqft.
In 2007 - there was at least a 50% reduction in property tax as they took the school tax out and added 1% sales tax. Not sure how they manage to fund the schools which apparently are good in this area.
If we lived across the other side of the lake in NC, we'd pay about $6000.

Kaffy Mintcake

I read that as, my BIL is incredibly wealthy.

Jerseygirl

Those property taxes are not unusual for the NE.

TimFountain

One of the founders of our company built himself an Italian styled village with opera house, observatory, a river, bowling alley and a huge 6000ft banquet hall. All told the air-conditioned space comes to over 40,000 sq.ft. He levelled the top of a small hill to build on. His property tax is $120K per year!

I took a picture of the 'village' during construction.

I have never asked him what his electricity bill is....

- Tim