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Like most homeowners in the DFW area, I've experienced a home owner's sticker shock.
This year my Dallas home property value was increased 25%. I protested the value and it was reduced somewhat.
This interesting and timely news article sums it up.
Property tax time bomb: How rising home values could torpedo your retirement plans
May 09, 2018
FORT WORTH
Stacy Fuller hoped to live out her retirement years in Fort Worth, her home since 1958, but property taxes drove her away.
The retired widow recently sold her longtime home in the city's Wedgwood area and downsized to a $40,000 home in a small city near the Texas-Arkansas state line, where property taxes are $475 a year — a tiny fraction compared to the $4,400 she was paying annually in Tarrant County.
She lives mostly on her pension from Union Pacific Resources, an oil exploration company, where she worked as a database manager.
"I would like to still be in Fort Worth. My daughter and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are there, and now it's a four-hour drive to see them," she said. "But I needed to be able to live on Social Security and my pension. I knew by the time I reached 65 the property taxes would take my entire pension check to cover. It's sad to work so long, to have a paid-for house and find you can no longer afford to live in it if you retire."
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North Texas has already lost its reputation as a place where housing is dirt cheap, with home prices increasing 33 percent in the past three years. That's good if you're in the market to sell your home — but bad if you want to stick around and "age in place" during retirement years, while paying a much higher property tax bill.
Some residents who are at or nearing retirement age find they don't have enough saved up to pay living expenses, with several thousand additional dollars per year going toward property taxes that they didn't forecast in their budgets. Although some local governments offer residents a property tax freeze after they reach age 65, the freeze doesn't affect all taxes.
And many residents are being caught off guard by the steady rise in property values in their 40s and 50s as they begin to plan for retirement — well before they qualify for a tax freeze."
more at link
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article209980869.html
.
Like most homeowners in the DFW area, I've experienced a home owner's sticker shock.
This year my Dallas home property value was increased 25%. I protested the value and it was reduced somewhat.
This interesting and timely news article sums it up.
Property tax time bomb: How rising home values could torpedo your retirement plans
May 09, 2018
FORT WORTH
Stacy Fuller hoped to live out her retirement years in Fort Worth, her home since 1958, but property taxes drove her away.
The retired widow recently sold her longtime home in the city's Wedgwood area and downsized to a $40,000 home in a small city near the Texas-Arkansas state line, where property taxes are $475 a year — a tiny fraction compared to the $4,400 she was paying annually in Tarrant County.
She lives mostly on her pension from Union Pacific Resources, an oil exploration company, where she worked as a database manager.
"I would like to still be in Fort Worth. My daughter and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are there, and now it's a four-hour drive to see them," she said. "But I needed to be able to live on Social Security and my pension. I knew by the time I reached 65 the property taxes would take my entire pension check to cover. It's sad to work so long, to have a paid-for house and find you can no longer afford to live in it if you retire."
Our journalism takes a lot of time, effort, and hard work to produce. If you read and enjoy our journalism, please consider subscribing today.
North Texas has already lost its reputation as a place where housing is dirt cheap, with home prices increasing 33 percent in the past three years. That's good if you're in the market to sell your home — but bad if you want to stick around and "age in place" during retirement years, while paying a much higher property tax bill.
Some residents who are at or nearing retirement age find they don't have enough saved up to pay living expenses, with several thousand additional dollars per year going toward property taxes that they didn't forecast in their budgets. Although some local governments offer residents a property tax freeze after they reach age 65, the freeze doesn't affect all taxes.
And many residents are being caught off guard by the steady rise in property values in their 40s and 50s as they begin to plan for retirement — well before they qualify for a tax freeze."
more at link
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article209980869.html
.
