Property Value/Appraisals RANT

[dmccarty]

Property taxes are set by the town budget divided by the value of all the property in the town "The Grand List" A well run city with a lot of commercial property can have tax rates well below average and a poorly run rural town that tries to provide city services like trash collection without some industry or commercial property to support it can have very high tax rates. I think the benchmark for what is low or high is two percent of what you could really sell it for today. that would be school, town and county taxes combined. More then two percent your getting ripped off less then two percent keep quiet and reelect those in charge.

It depends on the locality and local conditions. I do NOT pay town taxes. Only county taxes which helps reduce our tax bill quite a bit. The city I lived it was VERY expensive as was the county. They have had at least THREE multi BILLION dollar school bonds since we bought our land. Taxes in that county and city are MUCH higher. Interestingly enough the rate is about the same but the valuations are what drive up the tax bill. I would guess our current house, if it was on a .20 acre lot in that city, would be valued at least 50% more.

Interesting that you brought up commercial property. The city we lived in started out as a bedroom community to Raleigh and RTP but has drastically grown. Now there is quite a bit of retail commercial property but not many businesses that pay high wages.

Our county politics are nasty. Part of this is from people up Nawth moving away from the mess they had at home, yet trying to make the same mess down here. These people elected some real winners to the county board, who thankfully, have been voted out of office. The county seat is still controlled by these yahoos. Our county is rural with one part being a bedroom community for other cities. The tax load of houses vs commercial is hurting the county. The people voted into office a few years ago are VERY anti business. At one point, they were going to prevent ANY development 1500 feet along both sides of a major road. The road in question is a major four lane rural highway and they were going to prevent development from a strip of land 3,000 feet wide that went for MILES. Why? Because building along that road would ruin its rural character. This was blatant confiscation of property and never went anywhere but it shows the mindset. The major and his crony's are blatant Christian haters. A church wanted to move their school to an unused building in town. This building has been unused and underutilized for years. Having that building open would dramatically improve the area in question, provide a bit extra tax money, but more importantly, it would bring retail traffic into town. The church did everything that was asked to get permits but in the end the mayor and his minions put too many road blocks in front of the church so they went elsewhere after spending quite a bit of money.

What is ironic is that this group of voters HATES Developers. Yet they live in houses built by Developers and the major IS a Developer. Well, I should say WAS since his business went bankrupt years ago and he owes the Fed's quite a few dollars in back taxes. This same group fought for years to prevent a Walmart from opening. There is one Walmart in the county and it only serves that part of the county. MOST of the county has to shop for non grocery items OUT of the county. This cost the county not only property taxes but sales taxes. Thankfully, the Walmart is finally going to get built with some other retail stores. What is ironic is that the Walmart will be built very close to the county line. The adjoining county is very anti business, and especially anti Walmart, so our county will collect a huge amount of sales taxes from people shopping from the other county.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I used to commute 100+ miles to work. Even with a pretty efficient car, my fuel cost was 6 to 800 per month. And I have to pay for my trash hauling seperate, plus I need propane rather than natural gas, propane is more than 2x. Then my home insurance is quite a bit more, since I am 8 miles from the nearest fire station. I don't really see that rural living is cheaper. My brother lives 3 miles from his workplace in the city, he fills his truck up about every 3 weeks. His taxes are about 20% higher than mine, but he has a paved road, trash collection, cheaper heating, and a fire station 3 blocks away. I like living in a rural area, but low cost it is not.

Living rural for us is MUCH cheaper.

Our house insurance went DOWN when we moved to the country. It decreased by at least 50% for a house that is twice the size and worth a heck of a lot more. We heat with wood that does not cost anything but my labor and a wee bit of fuel for the tractor and chainsaw. Heck for the last two years I have been splitting the wood manually instead of with the hydraulic splitter. Are HVAC costs are MUCH lower as a result and we are far more comfortable during the winter compared to the city house.

I drive 75ish mile round trip to work with a F350 that gets 21-22 MPG. I fill up about every 10-14 work days during a normal work period and it costs about $125-130 at current fuel prices. I am lucky in that I can work from home somewhat so I usually only have to drive to work four days a week. Worse case, if I drive more than going to/from work I have to fill up three times a month but usually it is only twice.

People hear were I live and ask about the drive time and cost. The reality is that traffic to our city house was so bad that my drive time is about the same. I hit very little traffic driving home once I get out of the city. Going to our old city house would routinely take an hour and if there was an accident it could take even longer. MPG wise the rural driving is much better, I get about 20% better MPG compared to what I used to get because I am not in traffic. The traffic has gotten worse back in the city so the MPG difference and drive time has likely increased. I do spend more money on fuel but it is not that much more since the rural driving uses less brakes, less fuel, and I don't have to change oil as much. I change oil at 10,000-14,000 miles. If we were in the city, the oil chages would at best be every 5,000 and maybe 2,500 miles.

Trash collection. I HATE it. I had to pay quite a bit for that $%^&*(_)+ "service" in the city. Those ba....tards would torment our dogs from time to time and ALWAYS leave trash in my yard. Our garbage was always bagged. But the lazy garbage men would fill up their carts to overflowing and leave trash from other houses in our yard. We have it great now. I take the garbage to a collection area that is neat and well maintained that is very convenient to us. We pay for the place with county taxes and there is no tipping fee. Usually I drop off the garbage on Monday. We bought large garbage cans when we moved to the rural house thinking we would need them. We very seldom used them. We just put one bag of garbage in the can when we left for XMAS. We just put the garbage in the truck and I drop it off. Easy Peasy.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Rural vs town costs, what are the numbers if you compare the cost of a well and septic system to monthly utility bills in town? Septic systems don't last forever and do need some periodic maintenance. Wells require electric usage and you hope they don't fail. Figure in the cost of money you have invested in the well and septic as lost opportunity too. It could have been earning something, or reduced your mortgage and consequent interest charges.

Our water, sewer and trash collection ran from $50 to $125 a month depending on water usage. This was almost a decade ago so the prices have to have gone up. Given that the kids have gotten bigger our water/sewer bill would have grown. The bill prior to us getting a front loading wash was well over $100 a month. The front loader really saved us some money because the water/sewer bill dropped dramatically after we bought it. I would guess the bill would be much higher today because the city we used to live in increased the prices for water, general cost increases, and we might use more water because the kids are older.

We pump our septic tank every four years. It needs to be done now and it will cost $200-300. I don't know of anyone who has had to build a new septic field. The wifey's grand parents replaced the METAL septic tank when she was a young kid and I know a guy would had to replace his CINDER block septic tank. I don't expect that we will have to replace anything if we do what we are supposed to do to maintain the system. In neither case was a new field required. Let say that our average city water/sewer bill was a $1,000 a year which is only $83 a month, in 20 years that is $20,000. Our septic field is simply three trenches that can be dug in a day with Infiltrator "pipes" over the trenches which are then back filled. If that cost $10,000 to replace in 20 years, I would be shocked, but I would still be $10,000 ahead.

Water usage cost.. Never tried to price it.... Best I can tell we don't use more than 200 gallons a day. I think our pump is rated at 5 GPM so it would have to run 40 minutes during the day for 200 gallons. The pump is 240v on a 20 amp breaker so that should be using 4800 watts or 4.8 KWH. If we run it, 40 minutes that is 3.2 KWH. A KWH cost us .10 so that is .32 cents a day....

But I would think power usage would be less because the pump does not use as much power after start up. So I think worst case we would spend $9.60 a month to pump water. Our resident EE's and sparky's can check my power calculations. :laughing::laughing::laughing: $10 a month is much cheaper than $100. Now we did have to replace our tank after six or so years but that should not have had to been replaced and it should have lasted much longer but scat happens. Even spreading the cost of the new pressure tank over six years is only $7 a month. The real cost question is how long will the well pump last? :confused3:

Now the well and septic cost money to install and I think both cost about $8,000. So at this point, the installation cost is paid off compared to what we would have paid the city for water and sewer. But I suspect we are head money wise since the prices would have increased in the city.

One thing is for sure. Our water tastes MUCH better than that swill we got in the city. :thumbdown:

Later,
Dan

 

[300UGUY]

Not only is that what they are worth...it is what they cost. Every house requires a sewer main and water main for its service connections. Those are reletively expensive to install nowdays. The monthly fees pay for the actual treatment costs whether it be water or sewer.

In my area, just the permit is 5K, the hookup can cost quite a bit more, and it has to be done by licencensed plumbers. I was told that one house the hookup was 10K, so the total was 15K. But getting a septic approved here is getting harder. The county is doing more testing before you can start digging. The result is engineered systems that can cost 20K. My neighbor just put in a new well, she had qoutes from 4 drillers, it cost $4500. In some areas here, near lakes, the county is testing septics every year, by putting dye in the tank. Anything shows up in the water, you have to hook up to the sewer system. I think testing of septics on some basis will be here for everybody in the future.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Got you beat on the water. Mine comes from my spring which is 1800 feet away through the woods and a 100 feet higher then the house. It runs down gravity feed and needs no pump or power. No bill for it but I did have to replace 900 feet of 100 yr.old galvanized iron pipe about twenty years ago. Rented a ditch-witch for a couple of days about $300 including the pipe and machine rental.
On the septic I installed a 1000 gallon concrete tank and new sand bed (6 ten wheeler loads) to "Repair my existing system" for my old house back when no permit was required if you did it yourself. The old system consisted of a 4" clay pipe out to a ditch in the woods so it was quite an improvement. Then when I built the new house and tore down the old I just listed using existing 1000 gallon tank and leach field on the permit application which was approved no questions asked.
I ought to get it pumped one of these days.
At one time I had three teenage daughters living with us at the same time competing for bathroom time and hot water. One liked to set in a bubble bath for hours reading a romance novel and would keep adding hot water until the tank was empty. We called her Prunella . Not a problem in the winter when the hot water comes off the wood furnace but in the summer they would go through about seven pounds of propane a day. :thumbsdown:
One time I told a contractor that I had spring water coming from the tap and he couldn't get his head around it. " You mean you take showers in spring water" ? Yup flush the toilet with it to.

 

[LWG]

Concerning the housing market......... this whole situation was created by the lenders and now the public suffers the consequences... com'on fellas, read the papers.

No, it was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act and Fanny, Freddie, Frank, Franklin, Dodd, Clinton, Carter, Gorelik and the usual characters. The fact that this fraud was pulled off without a single prosecution or censure is the shame of the Nation.

 

[Furu]

....if it does then all parcels that are more then walking distance to a rail or bus line will drop in value by half or more. It won't make any difference if you don't have to commute in town to work the market will be set by those that do.

Not to diverge from the OP original intent but...

It is always interesting to note opinions and experiences of those that live back east versus those that live out west. Probably less than 0.5% of the homes fit the category of walking distance to transit terminals and there is probably not a single member of this site that would live in the locations that fit those homes. The smallest state out here would fit the size of 5 of the east coast states and most of the eastern seaboard could fit inside one of the states and definitely inside three of them. The concepts that eastern residents have are so much different that west of the Mississippi states. It is a difference that is fascinating to observe.

 

[sdkubota]

No, it was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act and Fanny, Freddie, Frank, Franklin, Dodd, Clinton, Carter, Gorelik and the usual characters. The fact that this fraud was pulled off without a single prosecution or censure is the shame of the Nation.

Some refuse to acknowledge the reality or stay ignorant by believing the talking points. Unfortunately, these same people vote.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Not to diverge from the OP original intent but...

It is always interesting to note opinions and experiences of those that live back east versus those that live out west. Probably less than 0.5% of the homes fit the category of walking distance to transit terminals and there is probably not a single member of this site that would live in the locations that fit those homes. The smallest state out here would fit the size of 5 of the east coast states and most of the eastern seaboard could fit inside one of the states and definitely inside three of them. The concepts that eastern residents have are so much different that west of the Mississippi states. It is a difference that is fascinating to observe.

You say that but 60 percent of all the people in Washington state live in the Seattle metro region so it is not so much different in the west. Of course a rural state that needs just one farm family for every five sections of land will have different dynamics then the eastern megalopolis. If motor fuel doubles or triples in cost then much of suburban American both east and west becomes an economic wasteland.

 

[Furu]

You say that but 60 percent of all the people in Washington state live in the Seattle metro region so it is not so much different in the west. Of course a rural state that needs just one farm family for every five sections of land will have different dynamics then the eastern megalopolis. If motor fuel doubles or triples in cost then much of suburban American both east and west becomes an economic wasteland.

I have no idea where your 60% number comes from but I did not say what you purport. Even in the city of Seattle the number of folks in walking distance is relatively small. There are park and rides that folks drive to to even get close to transit. Your response and the words you chose prove my statement about the differences between east and west. They are as large as the differences between conservative and liberal and have no correlation between.