So today I got my assessment from the county for this year's property taxes. According to the county, in approximately 4 years the value of my home has increase a whopping 44%.
What?
I know what you are thinking when you see that number: surely you must have improvements to your home! Or your neighborhood is just blossoming with others who are making improvements!
Sadly, no. The only "improvements" we have made are to fix the garage door that destroyed itself and the two fences that collapsed this year. Beyond that, not a darn thing. And our neighborhood pretty much remains the mid 1990's neighborhood that it was when we moved here.
I am not sure what this will do to our property taxes other than hike them. which means we will be in arrears (again) for the escrow fund where such money is stored and means our house payment on the whole will go up (again). Our payment has increased 12.5% since we moved in.
Oh there is a good side, I suppose. My theoretical equity has gone up from 6% to 37% in the same period of time. Not that I feel it, of course: it is all lost money until such a time as it is cashed out and even then buying and selling in the same market means that any such equity is essentially lost - it would taking relocating to a new, cheaper market to recapture it.
But it lays open a ticking time bomb for our finances: at 12.5% over four years our payment is increasing by 3.125% a year. Another 10 years at that rate - the outside amount we would have to stay here - and our payment is up another 31.25%, or possibly 42.5% all together.
That, my friends, is simply unsustainable. Even with a crazy increase in value.
You can appeal the appraisal to your county. Sometimes that works.
ReplyDeleteWe can do that here, and I am attending a class from the local HOA to that effect. Let us say my faith in significantly protesting the increase is somewhat limited...
ReplyDeleteIt's true that when you think of "property values" most people forget that it increases the tax situation too. That is definitely not sustainable...when Alex and I buy, we are moving to what is referred to as "the poor provinces" of Canada. We are fortunate that he works from home and can live anywhere, for me, I'm on disability. We don't plan to pay much for a home and property and we would be fine living in an area where the likelihood of property value rising is either really low or non-existent.
ReplyDeleteIt is true down here as well Rain. It can vary a little bit by state and how the handle their tax rates - for example, California is limited to a 1% increase a year; my state, not so much. Urban areas are almost always worse down here.
DeleteIn my happy place, I would either be in a place where, as you say, the rate of increase is almost non-extant, or even declining (but only in a rural setting - declining property values in an urban area, generally speaking, is not somewhere you want to live).