Tell me about it...Here in Sue York, my parents are paying $11k a year in property taxes (last they told me..Probably is $12k now), and they live all the way out in the boondocks on Long Island, in Riverhead. They`re in their late 60`s now and want to retire but really can`t because of this property tax stuff and the Clinton initiated taxation on Social security. And what happens if they don`t pay that property tax? Good bye house. It sucks beyond belief because they don`t want to move and I ain`t rich, far from it, but I still have to throw them some cash every now and then. It pisses me off like you can`t imagine, not that I have to help them out , but that they have to stave off a bunch of sc*mbags from taking something they OWN. THEY own the land and the house, no mortgage, nothing, yet they have to pay this ridiculous amount which to me amounts to nothing more than holding someones property hostage each year.
Gad, move to the midwest, our taxes are less than 3k. Two acres.
Where I live, if you claim a homestead exemption, in order to pay property taxes of 11k, the county must assess your home's value to be well over 2 million dollars, keep in mind, if your home is assessed for taxes at that rate, you could probably sell it for at least 4 mil, if not more. And keep in mind, this is in the city where property taxes are higher.
If you buy a home in the average middle class neighborhood here, and claim a homestead exemption, you're probably going to be paying a property tax in the $800-1600 range, and the higher numbers on that range begin to definitely bracket in the upper middle class.