Help me understand property taxes in Pennsylvania

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Delaware also does not adjust

Which seems nuts, because of one day progressives take over and complain about equity, they could decide to reassess everything so that the tax base for property taxes would be modernized to make sure 'people pay their fair share'. It seems like a massive risk to move to states or areas where they don't constantly update their assessments. Assuming assessments will never go up is a gigantic gamble. One day you could wake up to a tax bill that quadruples due to some progressive pols getting aggressive. Your low tax bill is entirely predicated on politics never changing.

This is only an issue for people buying expensive homes, or who are lucky enough to buy a home that massively appreciates. Most people own homes worth way less so even if their tax bill triples or quadruples, their current taxes are so low that it would not even matter that much.

Also higher taxes are tied directly to city services. If your tax bill is going up to pay for the fantastic schools or great parks and amenities, well-- how else can they pay for those.

I am not going to sit around worrying about the possibility that my 500k house in a great area with wonderful schools might double in value and then "of no!" I'll gain a half million in equity in a place where it will be easy to sell because it's appealing to live there, and have to pay a tax my fraction of that equity in property taxes.

Not true at all.

$6k tax bill on this $460k home:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1406-Greywall-Ln-Wynnewood-PA-19096/9956995_zpid/


That’s only because the home is assessed at $153k. Are you really going to say with a straight face that if one day politics changes and they update that home assessment to be taxed at the current value of $460k that a tax bill going from $6k to potentially north of $18,000 wouldn’t sting or matter much to that owner?

Weird example-- there is something odd going on with that house. It's been on the market for over 200 days and has no interior photos. Also tax bill has gone up a lot over last 10 years even though assessment is the same. Could be a blighted property. In any case I doubt it's worth $460k-- that's just what it's listed at and no one will pay that. It's obviously a tear down and maybe have been hit with vacant or blighted property taxes in recent years. Not a typical property in Wynnwood.

But look, I can solve your issue with PA property taxes pretty easily: don't move there.

I don't get why you are so worked up about taxes in a place you don't live and, from what I can tell, don't want to live. Why not just move to VA if you don't like MoCo taxes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Delaware also does not adjust

Which seems nuts, because of one day progressives take over and complain about equity, they could decide to reassess everything so that the tax base for property taxes would be modernized to make sure 'people pay their fair share'. It seems like a massive risk to move to states or areas where they don't constantly update their assessments. Assuming assessments will never go up is a gigantic gamble. One day you could wake up to a tax bill that quadruples due to some progressive pols getting aggressive. Your low tax bill is entirely predicated on politics never changing.

There is talk of Sussex County adjusting in Delaware.

[Anonymous]

The main line has very reasonable taxes that are far below the actual value of the homes. Despite this there are superb schools and minimal services and it’s safe. The schedule for reassessment varies by town or county and it is infrequent. You might get reassessed if you increase your square footage.

Also, note that the state tax in PA is a flat 3% for everyone. That’s a huge savings compared to Maryland, NYC or CT.

[Anonymous]

The taxes are local (the rates here don’t have to do with “Pennsylvania”) and there is not much of a commercial base in some of these areas (Malvern) and school districts/townships are small. All this contributes to higher tax rates. Schools and services are generally very good, though.

Go look at NJ or NY if you want to see high taxes! These are moderate, comparatively. Moco MD is very low.

I am pretty sure in my township they are reassessed when people move, but the assessed value is never close to the sales price. I think it might exclude the house and just be land?? Not sure though.

[Anonymous]

But to answer one of your questions, nobody here is concerned that assessments will become the same as sales price. That’s not how it is done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But to answer one of your questions, nobody here is concerned that assessments will become the same as sales price. That’s not how it is done.

Of course not, but there is a massive gulf between a home selling for $1M and a tax assessment value of $250k. Sure, the assessment value may not immediately go to $1M just because it sold for that, but there is massive amounts of room for taxes to go up if the govt decides one day to readjust. If taxes are $6k on $250k, they will be a loooooot more if the adjust goes to $600-700k even though the home sold for $1M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there's a statewide tax policy. Property taxes are dictated by the local town/township, which can and do vary widely. Some Philadelphia suburbs have low taxes, others have much higher taxes and corresponding lower housing prices. Main Line has fairly low property taxes. Philadelphia has lowish property taxes but the wage tax more than makes up for it.

Philly has (or used to have) extremely low property taxes in order to encourage people to buy in the city.

My relatives live in middle of nowhere PA and pay $4000 on a $200k market value house. That is a much higher tax rate than here…I do think the assessed value is close to that, so where they live either recently assessed or does so on a more regular basis.

I do wonder if new homeowners pay attention to this stuff in addition to mortgage amounts…I suppose it’s a good thing many banks escrow property tax in the mortgage payment.

Of course, NJ and NY property taxes are insane (maybe only NYC suburbs?) in addition to high income tax.

No, the property taxes are insane in Upstate NY, too.

[Anonymous]

My inlaws pay like 6k on their 300k home (my home is triple that and I only pay 6k too). I guess schools have to get funded still and it doesn't matter how much your house costs.

[Anonymous]

You should expect the taxes will be higher when you buy than they are for the current owner. There’s a 1% transfer tax in my township too. But you should look into the details for the area where you’re looking.

[Anonymous]

It get reassessed when it is sold. When we bought our home our property taxes went up almost 35% the first year.

[Anonymous]

Having just bought a $1mm+ house on the main line from out of state, I was told by my realtor that. they simply never update the assessments. Instead, they increase the tax rate when more funds are needed. This actually makes a lot of sense and does not result in, say, new homeowners paying astronomically higher taxes than people who have been in their house longer. This I'm sure varies by municipality. But the assessed value of the home I just bought is approx 1/3 of the price I paid.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like I should rent in the nice Philly suburbs.

[Anonymous]

My parents live in PA. A few years’ back their county did a complete re-assessment. Many people’s taxes went up, theirs went down. The county adjusted the rates to make things fairly level year over year.

[Anonymous]

PA property taxes are baffling OP. The school taxes are insane. Nothing seems to go anywhere but the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having just bought a $1mm+ house on the main line from out of state, I was told by my realtor that. they simply never update the assessments. Instead, they increase the tax rate when more funds are needed. This actually makes a lot of sense and does not result in, say, new homeowners paying astronomically higher taxes than people who have been in their house longer. This I'm sure varies by municipality. But the assessed value of the home I just bought is approx 1/3 of the price I paid.

Ima previous poster. We were told the same thing by our realtor. Then a year after we bought our school district requested a spot assessment of just our home. The county did that and adjusted it up to our purchase price. Which doubled our tax amount. Then covid hit and our schools went from being rated 7 to 3. So, we don't have good schools. So, after the kids are out of school in a few years we will move to. Shame on us for believing our realtor. Expensive lesson learned.