Did your real estate tax go up this year?
Mine did. According to blogger and Realtor Diane Vespa, this year promises to be a “doo-sie” for re-assessments in the river city. Luckily for us, Diane wrote up a handy guide on how to successfully argue your case in front of the Peoria County Board of Review. I encourage you to check it out…
Real estate taxes too high? Speak now or forever hold your peace!
September 25th, 2007 at 7:30 am
I have heard a lot of piss’n n moan’n over the years about assessments. People are always complain’n about how high they are. Yet when I go looking at the County Records, it seems only the really poor areas are being over assessed in my opinion. When I look at the wealthier areas, they seem under assessed. Every home I have owned has been under assessed, not that I am going to march downtown and demand to pay more.
I would love to see Diane throw out some examples of gross over assessments. We should also keep in mind that Diane very anti property tax. So I cannot imagine any change in assessments short of going down being acceptable to her.
The problem with the anti-property tax position is that most often their proponents fail to explain where the money will come from once the tax is gone. When you see how much sales tax or income tax would have to go up to make up for what you pay in property tax, you realize how unrealistic it is to do away with property taxes, however flawed the system is.
If you want to look at Peoria County records go here:
http://66.99.203.101/assessor/realasp1.asp
You need MS Explorer to use it, the web page does not play nice with Firefox.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:53 am
ironic that a realtor, whose livellihood depends on people buying homes and pushing prices up and who makes more money if someone overpays for a home is actually trying to help people fight their assessments.
its kinda like bar owner helping you to sober up or a casino directing you to gamblers anonymous.
September 25th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Hi Obi-wan,
Actually too high real estate tax assessments make homes less affordable and negatively impacts the market of qualified buyers. I meet with lots of people that can afford the homes but can’t afford to pay the taxes. This phenomenon seems to particularly impact those on fixed incomes such as our Senior citizens. I agree that many of Illinois critical programs are grossly underfunded but continuing to squeeze the homeowner is not the solution. I would like to see an increase in state income taxes, which to me would seem to be a more equitable way of meeting our states obligations. I’m certainly not an expert or a politician, I just know that compared to other states our real estate taxes are enormously out of proportion. I welcome a mature discussion. Thanks!
September 25th, 2007 at 11:00 am
If a potential homeowner cannot afford to pay for the home AND the taxes, then they cannot afford the home. The taxes come with the home. It is part of the package. It is a deeply flawed statement to say “can afford the homes but can’t afford to pay the taxes”.
The problem as I see it is that all the advertising for loans, home selling, what not does not really give a good picture of the cost for a home. You get a pitch along the lines of a house costing X dollars and it will only cost you Y a month. Never mentioned are the taxes which add some more hundreds a month. The buyers attention seems deliberately distracted from that detail. by the multitudes of people involved in home purchasing. I think there is a strong current of home buyers who buy more home than they can properly afford. Then when their home values go up… and therefore their taxes go up, they are suddenly squeezed. I don’t see that problem as being that of the assessor but rather the fiscal responsibility of the owner. If your taxes are burdensome then I would say you probably got too much home.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I agree with most of what you say, other than the cost of the home is a fixed expense - one in which you know now and forever how much it is going to cost you and eventually will be able to pay it off. Taxes are another story. Taxes just continue to escalate, and become so high in our state, that it seems you can never feel like you “own” your home. Again, this is a common predicament for our elderly, who can often afford their home which they have worked for all their lives, but after retirement cannot afford the annual tax liability.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
The elderly can get their property taxes frozen.
But I will add.. that even in your elderly years, if you cannot afford to maintain your home, you need to downsize or change your arrangements. That is a hard emotional thing to do when you live in a house all your life but it needs to be done. When I talk about maintenance, it isn’t just taxes either. All those costs go up over time too.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
A more correct question would be how do property taxes in Poeria compare to the cities and towns in the area. Then add cost for the basic services (police, fire, public works), school district rating, and amenities (parks, libraries, zoo, museum). After this equation is properly put together, extrapolate the REAL COST of the taxes. Remember that I am a person who is anti-unnecessary taxes. I don’t think the property taxes are extraordinarily high in Peoria, but I also don’t think we are getting what we are paying for either.
September 25th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I have to ask since some are talking about being mislead about home buying. What exactly is a “Luxury Home Specialist”? I see this real-estate agent listed as one but can find no courses offered for it at say…I.C.C. More selling propaganda?
September 25th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
““can afford the homes but can’t afford to pay the taxes”.”
Having grown up on the North Shore, I disagree that affording the home and affording the taxes are the same thing. Many people can afford the downpayment and mortgage, but can’t swing the ever-steeply-increasing taxes. Or can afford the taxes and mortgage but not the downpayment.
@AntiPundit: “Luxury Home Specialist”
Real Estate Agents who specialize in marketing and selling at the very high end of the market. Agents who manage to make entry into this market are much sough after by those seeking to buy or sell high-end homes. It doesn’t come with a certification; it’s an on-the-job task one either can do or one cannot.
Personally I think my taxes went up too much this year but only because my mortgage lender underestimated my escrow and I was REALLY ANNOYED about it!
September 25th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Anti-Pundit: A “Luxury Home Specialist” is a realtor who doesn’t want to deal with buying and selling lower priced houses because the commissions are so low. It’s a lot easier to sell one $1,000,000 house than 10 $100,000 house.
Ms. Vespa: You look at the amount of money a “loan calculator” on many realtor and real estate companies web sites say one can afford on a medium income, and then you tell me honestly that real esate agents aren’t adding to the problem. What about all the people that took out ARMS and sub-prime loans they couldn’t afford? Where was the expertise of realtors to advise their clients against that? Let me tell you where they were… spending their commission checks. Because, ya see, it doesn’t matter if someone buys a home they can’t afford. At closing, the realtor gets their money.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
As long as people have their own free will and a relentless appetite to overspend, over-indulge and over-eat, our society will continue to buy homes, clothes and cars they cannot afford. Please don’t flatter me by suggesting that I am the cause of that. As far as getting paid, well, Realtors have families to feed too.. you gotta problem with that? Its impossible to argue with someone who chooses to be anonymous, because you likely have a hidden agenda that I could not change if I was the most persuasive person in America. So I will not engage you anymore, Mr. “Obiwan” (how original). I’m sure you are getting entirely too much pleasure from it. I hope you can work out your issues with whoever “did you wrong”. By the way, I’m quite sure I know who you are.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Diane Vespa: If you are so sure who I am, then call me out. If you don’t want to risk humiliation, do it privately. If you guess right, I’ll fess up.
Now, to your post…. I never said YOU were the problem. I never said reatlors were THE problem. I said they are adding to the problem. It’s kinda cool how you interpreted that squarely on your own shoulders.
There are many good realtors. I have worked with one. You may be one, as you and I have never met or spoken, much less done business together.
I have two beefs with your profession:
1) realtors constantly talk about ethics as being a main plank of their benefit. But to me, there doesn’t seem to be any enforcement of that. Is the realtor ethics issue lip service, or is there actually something going on to enforce the standards and weed out the bad ones?
2) I have no problem paying realtors fairly for their time. Their time is as valuable as mine. But there are too many realtors who do nothing but list the home and do the bare minimum to collect the commission. I worked with a great realtor who, while still interviewing her, laid out her marketing plan on how to sell my home. It included specifics including timetables, strategies, marketing. It was outstanding. But for every one like her there are lots of bad ones - and they all get paid the same. There doesn’t seem to be any recourse.
So enlighten me. Where am I going wrong?
September 26th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Realtors are in the business of mediating the sale of homes. They are not financial advisers or accountants.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
If you found a great Realtor, stick with her. Avoid the bad ones. Is this a great country or what? I see no problem here.