Will Property Taxes Kill Real Estate?

real estate property taxes

We received this anonymous email yesterday: Because local and state governments are losing so much money in tax receipts, you can not make money in Real Estate anymore, because municipalities are going to increase property taxes significantly over the next decade and force older residents to sell their homes and move to lower property tax cities. I remember this happened in 1987 to my father, who bought his house in Westchester County, New York in 1972 for $60,000.

The property taxes then were $1000 a year and in 1987 he was forced to sell the house because his taxes shot up to $15,000 and being retired he felt that they were out of control. In 2007 I went and visited the current owner of the house and the taxes then had shot up to $35,000. When my father bought his house he paid 1.6% property taxes on it each year and when he sold it he was paying 3.75%. Read more