Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
CA property taxes are not terrible at all. A $1.2M house around here would be about $20k-$30k a year in property taxes. Those also change every year, so a lot of elderly people on fixed incomes are forced to move. I know a number of people with beach houses that were bought by a parent in the 50's or 60's for a song, and now worth $1.5M, they have to sell them because they cannot afford the taxes. Or if the parents are in them they are forced to move because they can no longer afford the taxes.
My commercial site is assed at 1.4ish something like that and I pay just about $2k a month towards property taxes so around $24k a year.
Very true sadly and have had it happen in my own family.
My Grandmother actually had to sell the "summer cottage"( actually a 10 room/3 bath huge house )on the lake I spent most of my summers at growing up after my Grandfather died because she couldn't afford the property tax bills. She was being hit with $15K+ a year on property taxes way back in the mid 90's. It was eating up the money she had to survive on( and she lived to be 98 - over a decade past selling it ).
She also had a similar tax bill for her year round main house as well. My Grandparents were very well off, and when my Grandfather was still alive they could afford it( plus taxes weren't that high as said ^^^ way back when ). After he passed my Grandmother had to live off her SS and the money and investments set aside for her. $25K - $30K+ a year just for property taxes was too much never mind repair and upkeep, electric, heat, etc....
The family was devastated when the cottage was sold as my Grandfather loved that place, as did we all, but it was just too much $$$ for 3 or 4 months tops out of the year. Some of us chipped in for a few years to see if that would help but it was just too much so it was sold.
The other kicker was, and I eluded to it earlier, is the inaccuracy of assessed values for property tax purposes vs. real world values if you want to sell. They hit my Grandmother up for taxes on the cottage with an assessed value of the property( big house, large lot, right on the lake itself )for $750K on the last tax bill( $18K!!!
). However, despite listing it at $500K and having it on the market for 2 years waiting she ended up settling for $475K. very typical of tax value vs actual value.
