Buying A House: C or D?

I have no idea what I said re: that but I very cautiously accept this endorsement *looks around nervously*

Re: tree - no further discussion, no contact, no response. Anything else is just legitimising this guy trying to shake you down. Zero response is the only way to shut such people off. It's not his business, but he thinks he is negotiating with you when in fact he's not.

tree stuff is hilarious keep posting

starting to get the_fear about the amount of reno work we’re going to have to do 😬

what are property taxes? Is it like 'council tax' in the UK which is supposed to pay for rubbish removal, police, fire etc? Varies from council (region) to council but generally the bigger the house the bigger the tax. But it's only like £2-3k max per year for most normal people even in big family houses.

lol yes it is a bit like that. keep in mind the UK is practically alone in having virtually zero property tax, which is one reason its economy is so completely fucked up. houses become investments rather than places to live because the tax situation on them is so attractive.

we have 'stamp duty' which is a one-off tax when you buy a property. Plus capital gains taxes which apply (or are meant to apply) to any assets that aren't your primary residents. But nothing ongoing. So this $19k property tax, you just pay that monthly or whatever? Does it factor into the amount a mortgage lender will give you?

I actually don't know what the normal arrangement is, I think technically it's due at the end of the year but people often have escrow accounts with their banks so they can pay into it monthly? But I live in a coop apartment which is a different situation -- the taxes are assessed on the building rather than the apartment and my share of taxes is included in my monthly coop fees.

The big drawback of the system is that in most places property taxes are what funds public schools, so it de facto gives wealthier areas much better-funded schools. Of course that's less of a problem in a municipality that has a wide variety of property sizes and values rather than one that has all large lot single family homes, and there are some municipalities where good zoning laws and affordable housing construction gives lower income people the opportunity to attend better funded schools.

yeah bank escrow is the normal approach. it’s just part of my monthly mortgage payment.

in nyc I think I got billed twice a year from the city for property taxes.

Yeah, mortgage, tax, and homeowners insurance are all folded into one payment by the bank nice and easy like. While I doubt I'll live here long enough to pay the house down to $0, juggling tax and insurance payments by themselves would be an acceptable trade for no more mortgage.

Ah, I see, some banks do the escrow thing so all your payments are together. I have never used this option? I guess. My insurance and taxes were always separate except for my co-op apartment (just separate insurance for the interior of the apartment).

dang in the last dumb usa place I lived our property taxes were like $5k & people were balking at that when we tried to sell it. of course this was in corny nowheresville & people were like "scared" of the high school (that DFW attended so I dunno I don't think it was that bad? we left before our kids went to hs). but $19k a year? now I sorta get why people would be all like "my kid goes to private school so I don't want to play taxes". even though that's a social evil.

here we pay like 250 € a year for our "taxe d'habitation" but I think that's being suppressed in the near future as a reform of Macron's ?

$19K a year is probably on a very expensive house. Property taxes are pretty minimal -- per this chart

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-property-taxes/11585/

it looks like it's usually under $3K unless you live in one of a few high-tax states or have a very expensive house.

These taxes sound pretty low to me. In most markets, real estate appreciates very nicely in the long term, so people with enough capital to buy a house have access to an investment vehicle that generates profit with no work at all, and on which you pay -- get this -- zero tax on the first $250,000 of profit when you sell.

My county/city property tax combined for 2017 was $392.12.

My tax on my house in Brooklyn was I think $2500 a year but it tends to be lower in the city because of density and I had a small footprint. People move out of the city and pay those high taxes because the public schools are "better". I don't know since i don't have kids, but I am fine paying taxes for schools.

I bought in a part of Atlanta that's getting better each year, but is still slow/resistant to gentrification. That means the people who live here want to be here and aren't just flipping houses and moving on to the next hot neighborhood. The downside is that there's not a lot of cool stuff nearby and I have to drive into Atlanta proper for that, but the major upside is that I can afford to actually live within spitting distance of a major metropolitan area.

ours are $5200 per year, up from $4400 or so per year at the condo we lived in before this house. DC has really low property taxes, certainly lower than Maryland or Virginia, everybody in the suburbs assumes the opposite of course.

probably 2500-3000 a year here in Oregon, of course that's partly because of a property tax limitation ballot measure passed in the 90's that has totally fucked over the schools

Uh my wife tells me it was more like $7k in urblanda, ok I see why buyers were upset. That’s about how much in debt the bank « forgave » on our short sale.

When I buy a flat here it’ll probably cost a mil so we’re uh saving I guess.

$19K a year is probably on a very expensive house.

Not by NY metro standards. I think it's in the $600-700k range.

I was just told by my spouse that our apt here in Chile, the property tax is about $1000usd for the apt and parking space, paid separate from building maintenance.

my area generally has higher property taxes per square foot in the city, partially due to suburban leeching of resources and various political machinations. about $3500/year

Re: tree - no further discussion, no contact, no response. Anything else is just legitimising this guy trying to shake you down. Zero response is the only way to shut such people off. It's not his business, but he thinks he is negotiating with you when in fact he's not.

this is my preferred approach. What I think we'll end up doing is hiring a licensed arborist to prune all the trees on our lot, and give us some background data on rate of growth, maintenance etc. We want to make sure we are "reasonably maintaining" the trees by the standards of the law in case the neighbors want to proceed to get litigious with whatever fictions they cook up next.

Beyond that I'm going to make sure not to talk to them any more than is absolutely necessary.

What a fucking un-neighborly thing to do, it really stinks the more I think about it.

16 viewings in under a week. sick of hoovering right about now

my house was not expensive but the inner ring suburb i live in has very high taxes. i think we pay $5000 a year. still not as high as some other inner ring suburbs in cleveland

|||||| where are you looking

I've bought. I'm selling now, so having to keep the place super clean for viewings

ah got it

Keeping a house in showing shape is the worst. Even when we had an offer they still had open house, repeat showing until the contract was signed. I got my procedure of cleaning and putting personal items away clocked in under an hour.

We've been doing it with a baby and a 3-year-old. There's a LOT of crap to clear away before you can even Hoover

We are planning to not move until at least the littler one is in kindergarten (and we hence have no more childcare expenses). That dovetails nicely with the age at which they will probably stop drawing on walls and floors.

Also with a big clutter reduction (no more stroller, both will actually be old enough to do proper cleanup, etc)

old enough to do proper cleanup

hahahaha when is that exactly

judging from my own life, hopefully somewhere approaching age 40

https://i.imgur.com/sZdRkr7_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

sup

lol at my image idiocy

https://i.imgur.com/sZdRkr7_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

shrug

whoa is that your house mh? it looks spectacular!!

beautiful house

oh yeah really like that, that pic just makes me go "ahhhhh"

that me

painters finished yesterday but y’know, could always use a second coat on a couple spots

what's that nice big tree on the right

Someone spot me some cash for this https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/5/21/17377998/for-sale-lucien-lagrange-lincoln-park-condo

^ $3.2 million.

https://i.imgur.com/uLqQ3ys.jpg?1

Or $3.7 million without the wallpaper.

big tree is a maple. the property line goes right through the middle of it, and the trunk is pretty huge

it's gone from the dropping red buds part of the season to the dropping aerodynamic seed pods part

I actually kind of like that wallpaper? I don't know if I could handle living with it day-to-day though

cleaning that mirror frame, that's the thing

We've got a tree on our property line too. In fact ~*takes a deep breath*~ it's growing through one of the fence planks, warping it enough to where the dogs can touch noses through the space in between.

This of course would be one of the fences not replaced 100% by one of my neighbors. In fact, it's a rental, so unless I want to drive up to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and knock on the owners' door, dogs are going to be touching noses for awhile.

noice, mh

i chucked strollers, bouncers, etc in my car for viewings

Dogs touching noses is awesome and harmless; why fix what ain't broke?

Everything in my neighborhood dates from 1938 or so; everything is very lived-in and entangled. None of my feared awkwardnesses about property-line trees and fence ownership have come to pass.

I highly recommend giving people bottles of wine and inviting them to barbecues.

I need to have that walk that goes from the sidewalk to my front porch torn out and replaced. The aforementioned giant tree has sent roots underneath it and it's all over the place.