Posted on 07/13/2007 7:21:34 AM PDT by doc30
Looked at 4 pre-foreclosures today and folks are very interested in what I have to say, before those places end up on the courthouse steps.
Good luck and never give up on your dreams.
Boats are fun for a while then they tend to get expensive and sceduled maintenance is not something that can be forsaken for any reason.
RV’s don’t require that their hulls be scraped and painted every other season or whatever the requirement is. Lift it up and put the frame on jacks, cover the tires maybe toss a tarp over the roof and you’re done for the winter.
“Joe Oldtimer is therefore greedy?”
Joe Oldtimer doesn’t worry about his vote. Joe can get his county to spend more and doesn’t worry because he is not footing the bulk of the cost.
Our country was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation. We’ll the largest payers of property taxes here are the minority in the voting booth. Look at what happens when the welfare beneficients go to the voting booth - they vote themselves the party that will give them more.
Did I miss something.
A friend bought a home outside St Pete city limits that had burned to the ground. He cleaned up all the ashes and built a nice shop/garage. He parks his RV outside where he can connect to the sewer. He has the water and electricity on all year. When he goes back to Wyoming for the summer, he puts the RV inside the shop and locks the door.
The sweet deal is that the county sheriffs park in his driveway to moniter the highway.
How’s that line go about a welfare nation will not survive for long?
Yeah, my point I think. No biggie.
I moved to Florida on military orders just about four years ago. I previously had a 3K sq/foot two-story in the Midwest that I sold for about $215K, so when I started looking for a home here I told the realtor to find me something under $250K. We paid about $2,500/year in property taxes on that 3,000 sq/foot home (it was two years old when we sold it).
When we told her what we wanted, and what our price target was, the realtor laughed at us. She said that we’d need to up our price by at least $100K to get into a 2400 sq/foot 3-bedroom in a nice neighborhood. Basically, the cost per square foot of what we were looking for was nearly twice what we’d seen in the Midwest.
We ended up paying $350K for a 2,600 sq/foot home in a nice, safe neighborhood. I could have saved $60K by buying in a town 20 miles further from where I work and spending an extra hour commuting every day.
One year after we moved in I got my first bill for property tax...$7,200/yr. Because of this ridiculous “property tax welfare” law in Florida, called “Save Our Homes,” my next door neighbor, who built their home two years before us have the same size home with a nice pool, on a lot that’s about 40% larger than our lot, and they pay less than half the property tax that I do. There are homes in our subdivision that were built just two or three years before we bought ours, that are over twice the size of our home, but the owners are paying less property tax than I am because of this ridiculous law. I currently pay nearly the same amount every month in property tax on this house that I paid in P&I on my last home.
This law punishes...and I mean PUNISHES...the newcomers, including high school and college kids graduating and trying to start a life for themselves. A young college graduate would have a difficult time affording the purchase of a decent starter home in this area...for most high school graduates its virtually impossible.
If I had a friend or family member who was considering moving to Florida I’d strongly suggest that they forget it. I’d tell them to find another southern state where the state and its people are less friendly to illegals, where the locals haven’t established a welfare system of property taxation, and where they can get reasonable homeowners insurance.
“property tax welfare”
Good phrase for Florida.
But the voters will keep it that way because the majority benefit.
I’ve been told that there are two “equal protection” lawsuits pending on this. If true, hopefully they will make a difference.
As for the “majority,” I’m not sure if its true that a majority benefit. Anyone who has bought a home in the past five or six years is suffering from it. Young people will be driven from the state because they can’t get affordable housing, which makes this place a haven for illegals. Everyone suffers from that, weather they know it or not.
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