Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBTFD who wrote (27830)	3/5/2005 4:06:43 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

I'm not in CA, I'm in MD. We have some restrictions in the amount that taxes can rise, but none as sweeping as Prop 13. MD has an odd convoluted system that you have to be a tax attorney to understand. The rate is based on an assessed value that is only somewhat related to the market value. There are homestead caps and caps on how fast they can phase in new assessments, even though assessments are done every three years they almost never match the true market value of the house except on new housing. Right now my RE taxes are around .6% of what I could sell my house for tomorrow. If that price stays the same, the taxes will rise over the next three years to be around 1% of market value with the new assessment which was outdated the day it arrived. Needless to say, it's not an assessment I'd bother fighting unless my house falls in value over the next three years. Back when I lived in a Baltimore City property that fell in value in the early 90s, my whole neighborhood hired a lawyer and got the taxes lowered on the whole area simply because the assessor had automatically raised the assessment for the 100 or so houses in the neighborhood without taking into account that sale prices had fallen. In PA where I have lots of family, the tax rate varies from one township to another with lots of special taxing assessments on new development to limit growth. It hasn't limited growth at all, but limited developers to building only large profitable houses. The tax assessment on my brother-in-law's half million dollar new house was around 25k a year, 5%. Now that the house would sell for 2 million, it is still 25k. Go figure.