Originally Posted by keira-2007 (Post 5335964)

I hear what you're saying Jersey. It's just that there's all this stuff on the news at the moment about the state of the American economy, how the country could go into recession, that my concern is that the house prices would stagnate and we'd be no better off!



Thanks for that Sally. Very interesting. When you say the interest portion is tax-deductible - that confuses me slightly. (Come on it's not hard to confuse me though!) Tax-deductible is a good thing? :o

Originally Posted by Pharrya (Post 5335245)

Our County charges 1.1%, and gives a Homestead credit, which limits the rise to 4% pa. (The house get's reassessed upon sale)

Our tax bill is approx 1200 dollars, on a house worth in the region of $280k

Originally Posted by Sally (Post 5336247)

Yes - you can deduct that amount from the tax you have to pay on your income. .

Originally Posted by Roland Hulme (Post 5336315)

I think what I've learnt from this is:

1: There are many parts of the USA where you could buy a house and pay mortgage+taxes for less than you could rent.

2: It is possible to make a more sensible investment of your income into a house IF and only IF it appreciates in value.

3: What the f**k do the towns spent this property tax on? although at least they clear our garbage every week in the USA, whereas it's like living in the 70's in England, with a collection every two weeks.

Originally Posted by Roland Hulme (Post 5336315)

3: What the f**k do the towns spent this property tax on? although at least they clear our garbage every week in the USA, whereas it's like living in the 70's in England, with a collection every two weeks.

Originally Posted by Dan725 (Post 5336334)

We get the trash done twice a week here - I noticed that, last time I was in the UK they empty the bins once a fortnight - utterly ridiculous.

Originally Posted by TruBrit (Post 5336338)

yes i like the bins emptied twice a week asp as it's so hot and the bins get smelly. where our house is in the uk the bins are emptied each week, not sure which areas they are emptied every fortnight?

Originally Posted by Dan725 (Post 5336346)

Thats near Lincoln - as long as I could remember it was once a week - the bi-weekly thing started within the last 2 years or so. Cue "Britians going to Dogs, etc...." ;)

Originally Posted by Hiro11 (Post 5334788)

What enrages me about property taxes is that they are taken on an after tax basis. In other words, you're paying them out of your take-home pay rather than out of your gross pay. I thought double taxation was illegal? I guess not.

Originally Posted by Bob (Post 5336335)

that's just like in my town here...as they cycle through, one week rubbish, the next recycled...it's well annoying.

Originally Posted by snowbunny (Post 5336365)

You can write the interest and taxes off your federal income tax as an itemised deduction. However, this screws those for whom the standard deduction would be bigger -- eg the lower and lower middle classes :( because often the I+T is less than the standard deduction and they don't have any other itemised write-offs.

It really is a case of "do the maths" but you need to check whether or not you can/should itemise before considering the tax writeoff as a plus. I'm not explaining this well but I"m in between pain med doses and in some exquisite pain so hopefully someone else can put this more plainly -- remember the standard deduction.

Originally Posted by Roland Hulme (Post 5336315)

I think what I've learnt from this is:

1: There are many parts of the USA where you could buy a house and pay mortgage+taxes for less than you could rent.

2: It is possible to make a more sensible investment of your income into a house IF and only IF it appreciates in value.

3: What the f**k do the towns spent this property tax on? although at least they clear our garbage every week in the USA, whereas it's like living in the 70's in England, with a collection every two weeks.

Originally Posted by Sally (Post 5336387)

We pay separately for trash collection.

Originally Posted by Roland Hulme (Post 5334564)

Getting new ideas and concepts into my head is kind of like teaching a suet pudding to do long division - i.e. pretty much impossible and very frustrating.

However, my stodgy old opinions do change from time to time and one of the things I'm realising you lot have been right about the whole time long is HOUSES.

I sat down with the missus to look very seriously into the question of buying a house in New Jersey and no matter how it adds up, it just doesn't make any financial sense whatsoever.

The house opposite - a nice little four bedroomed place in a pretty crappy state of repair - is going for $250,000. BARGIN, says I. But the property tax is about 6k a year. Roughly $500 a month.

So on top of the $2,000 mortgage a month (twice our current rent) you'd have to pay $500 in taxes. That's pretty much put us in a pasta-for-dinner-everynight-of-the-week and domestic-beer-only-and-not-during-the-week-even-as-a-treat kind of situation and after living like that in England for four years (although we were renting at the time - thanks Gordon Brown) methinks: Screw that.

Seriously. Let's just rent for 5 years and stick that $1,500 a month into a high interest account. At the end you'd have $75,000 saved up whereas if we'd bought the house we'd have paid $30,000 in taxes and sure-as-shite not paid off $75,000 of our mortgage.

I mean, am I missing something here? Is home ownership really so insane in America? In England $250,000 might have barely bought you a terraced shoebox with indoor plumbing, but at least property tax was only £1,200 a year instead of nearly three times that.

At least then, your hard earned wages would go towards paying off your mortgage instead of paying for garbage trucks to run down your mailbox every week.

I would LOVE to have any thoughts or opinions - I defer to your experience and knowledge.