“we just paid 50,000 for it...so 2700.00/yr is mighty steep.”
If the taxes increase to $3,700 per year what will you be able to sell it for? $4,700 per year? See the problem?
Do you think you could rebuild the house for $50,000? If not if it burns down you wouldn’t rebuild it. It becomes difficult for builders to justify building new houses.
Another way of looking at it is you are paying 5.4% per year for your house excluding insurance and upkeep. That is higher than interest. You really don’t own your home.
The guy that held the over 100k note on the place decided it was too much for him to continue paying the house payment and the taxes and just defaulted.
I figure that his unfortunate loss was my gain since I am quite a bit ahead having spent just 50k cash for the place and less than 10k for new appliances and flooring...it is a fantastic neighborhood, professional folk mostly and the place borders a large park w golfing and tennis courts. It’s just a trip out the back gate to the park.
It still will hurt to pay the taxes but in a way they have already been payed for many years...just not by us but by the mortgage holder and the former owner.
Our farm in MO is up for sale, it has about the same tax burden but it’s 2 wells, 38 acres, new large barn, horse stalls, large greenhouse and a 4000 sq ft home...the tax here would be close to 20k/yr
It cost us about 300/mo just to have the 3 acre yard mowed...lol so actually since I can mow this postage stamp sized yard in IL that alone makes up a bunch of taxes.
And at least for a while (I hope) there is no state income tax for those over 65 in IL...so we can pull money from the market account wo state tax.
I decided on this IL home after doing a total cost of ownership calculation compared to staying in MO...this place came out way ahead and we can take the proceeds of the sale of the farm and buy bullion coins :-)