How Much Are Your Property Taxes?

We’ve recently touched upon things to do before you retire (5 Steps BEFORE You Retire) which included investigating the property taxes of a potential retirement location (because property taxes are always due, and they NEVER go down – only up).

There certainly are parts of the country with much higher property taxes than others and there are even counties and towns within counties that have higher property taxes. Some states rely on property taxes because they don’t have income tax or sales tax, etc.. So decisions have to be weighed out. Some states simply overcharge in ALL areas!

I thought it would be interesting to anonymously (if you wish) comment with your annual property taxes and list the state that you reside in. You can simply enter anon (or whatever) if you don’t want others to know that it’s ‘you’ ;)

Obviously there will be differences in property taxes based on one’s home (size, evaluation, etc..) but it should still prove interesting to discover if there are any trends…

Sound interesting?

Okay, lets get started…

Comment below.

I will eventually build a results list and post when we’re about through with responses…

UPDATE:

Okay, given the results as of this update, I’ve quantified some of the numbers.

Note: Most of one’s property tax is based on where one lives, one’s home valuation, with lesser weight on outbuildings, and lesser weight on the land itself – to an extent. Given all of the variations it is nearly impossible to actually compare property taxes, however, I did anyway ;)

Note: Even within a given state, property tax can be exceedingly high in the city versus rural (common sense I suppose).

Note: States like California make it more difficult to analyze due to Prop-13 skewing long-time homeowners vs. new homeowners.

After throwing out the highest and the lowest property tax I came up with an average property tax being paid across the country by those who have submitted their data.

Average property tax: $2,889
Average home size: 1,972 square feet

The following list is sorted by state based on reader input data:
(If square footage was not given, I listed as 2,000)

State  Tax Sq.’ home
Alabama  $          404 2100
Arizona  $          650 1600
Arizona  $      1,200 1800
Arkansas  $      1,400 1300
California  $      1,400 2520
California  $      1,500 980
California  $      1,786 1073
California  $      3,000 1900
California  $      4,500 1400
California  $    26,000 2000
Colorado  $          329 2400
Colorado  $          625 2700
Colorado  $          765 1000
Colorado  $      1,043 1080
Connecticut  $      3,800 1000
Delaware  $          501 1800
Florida  $          950 1200
Florida  $      1,250 1700
Florida  $      1,750 1200
Florida  $      4,000 2700
Georgia  $          480 1800
Georgia  $      1,800 1800
Hawaii  $      1,600 2000
Idaho  $      3,200 4200
Illinois  $      1,800 3000
Illinois  $      4,100 1900
Illinois  $      6,300 2000
Illinois  $    12,900 2600
Kentucky  $      1,050 1200
Maine  $      2,200 2200
Maine  $      2,500 2000
Michigan  $      3,000 1800
Michigan  $      4,200 3800
Minnesota  $          220 1200
Mississippi  $          375 1800
Missouri  $          846 1600
New Hampshire  $      4,300 1900
New Jersey  $    10,866 2006
New Jersey  $    13,000 2000
New Mexico  $          500 2100
New Mexico  $      2,124 1825
New York  $      2,900 1000
New York  $      4,800 2800
North Carolina  $          800 1200
Ohio  $      1,300 2000
Ohio  $      1,800 1200
Ohio  $      4,300 3800
Oregon  $      2,500 1000
Pennsylvania  $      5,000 3700
Tennessee  $          295 700
Tennessee  $      1,551 1900
Texas  $      2,800 1700
Texas  $      3,200 3600
Texas  $      4,300 1850
Texas  $      7,800 2000
Utah  $      1,800 2000
Utah  $      3,895 3600
Vermont  $      2,700 1700
Vermont  $      6,000 2000
Virginia  $      3,200 3200
Washington  $      1,650 980
Washington  $      5,700 2400
Wyoming  $          584 1000