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BTW, my property taxes on a new, 2200 square foot house on a quarter acre are $645 PER YEAR.

BTW, my property taxes on a new, 2200 square foot house on a quarter acre are $645 PER YEAR.

In a good suburb of Columbus those taxes are $3000+ per year.

A few years ago when I was doing mortgages full time, I was refinancing a friend's condo down in Georgia. When I was running the numbers, I asked her how much the property taxes were, and she told me "around $400" and I proceeded with my calculations.

But the numbers weren't working out, because I thought she ment $400 a month, when she really ment $400 a year! Even after she assured me that the roads were paved, there weren't any chickens running around, and women weren't washing clothes in the nearby stream, I was still stupified.

The house I live in now (I don't own it, a friend does) is in Cedar Grove, which borders North Caldwell, where Tony Soprano lives, is about 3500 sq. ft., was purchased about 2 years ago for 350K (it's "worth" about $450K now) and carries a whopping $8000 per year property tax bill.

For additional perspective, the whole area is loaded with cops from every municipality and little town, and the average salary is over $100K per year. An amazing amount of people "work" for the government, and a huge chunk of them are on some sort of disabilty or another. Lots of union goons here.

Yet, every week like clockwork I get solicitations from these bums asking for money for whatever PBA type charity scam their currently running.

It's quite unbelievable to those that live in low tax states, but quite common for us that live in liberal-land. It didn't happen overnight; it was the old frog in the pot of boiling water routine. There was a time that people moved to NJ to escape the high costs of New York!

And the Republican politicians here are pretty much useless, extremely corrupt, and totally disorganized. But, it wasn't always this way-maybe things will change. But I'm not going to hold my breath!