Has anyone been able to lower their property tax bill with some PrepHole deprovement? My "home valuation" went up by 50% since it was last audited and I am due for another audit soon.
I am bordering on not being able to afford my home because of these taxes.
I am looking for ways to lower my property value for my next audit.
thanks
This world we live in is a joke.
No it's just america. Get out as fast as you can
>run away
Water the tree of liberty
>letting the government into your house
You deserve everything you get.
They don't, they observe the outside, at least where I live, the last assessment they did was a drive by style, one more reason to not have shudders, nice fence, shrubs and rocks around your house
They don’t even do that: typically it’s based on recent sales of similar properties in your area. OP needs to shit up several square miles around his house, not his own house. It is indeed a clown world.
Michigan will assume you renovated your house if your neighbors pulled permits to renovate their houses. Doesn't matter if you never pulled permits yourself, it's just assumed if several people on your street finished out their basements, that you finished out yours too. The only way to reverse this is to let an inspector come into the house.
In my county in Georgia, they only check on the house after a sale. In that case, the only measure the outside and then ask you to verify the number of bedrooms. They always do these checks with two employees because there's a non-trivial chance that the owner will be upset at "the government" coming on their and have a gun.
Why I'm not surprised that happens in America? In the rest of the world it's unlikely they'll force you out of your property because they increase the taxes following a likely speculation of the market.
Why am i surprised you think this happens in ""america""
It happens in some places, not others. JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD!
There is no property tax in first world countries
like homie, imagine paying the government for owning something, they are already taking half of your wage away with VAT and other salary taxes
What are you talking about?
I dont think youre talking about europe, because the only european states with no property tax are east european states.
I see, my bad
the west is cucked then
Anon... there are less than a dozen countries ON EARTH with no property tax.
just move to an area with lower taxes, then vote for the same shit that leads to high taxes. Repeat once that place becomes too expensive
do what our shitty neighbor did. they never finished updating their house on purpose, let the trees grow wild, and leave junked parts all over. and their taxes havent gone up in years. Youd never guess 4 people actively live there year-round
Looks like a nice place tbh. Reject modernity, embrace nature
This looks much nicer than the bland, soulless neighbour’s houses.
aside from the branch on the ground, the only bad thing I can say about this is that the windows are either really clean or missing glass.
Bro out here with a frickin fairytale forest elf for a neighbor and complaining about it. Did the dwarves tunnel into your basement and kick your dog or something?
Nta but thanks for making me feel old and nostalgic simultaneously.
I'm glad I made your day better... I think?
Could’ve been worse. You’re ok by me. Link related is what I assumed you were referencing btw.
>OP pays taxes based on his ~2006 era pricing
>Taxes readjust for his actual value which has gone up 50% or more
>"Please help, the value of my home has gone up substantially"
> value went up
Oh, yeah, I forgot about that incentive to keep housing prices artificially high: tax
I was blaming the banks!
Home values are readjusted every three years in my area, dickhead. I cannot realistically afford another 50% increase.
Your home has increased in value, it's not exactly a tragedy
Are you moronic? Do you think Musk has 300 billion dollars in his bank account?
It's only worth that if he sells his stocks, or I sell my house, which isn't going to happen.
>can't afford home
>refuses to move
stupid hill to die on, have fun.
>houses skyrocket in price across the board
>dollar becomes worth less and less
>"It's a good thing!"
post a picture of your nose
Its not a good thing. But a reality you have to deal with, whether you like it or not.
Anyway, I guess getting caught with a meth lab would do it.
It is since it's an illiquid asset. People were kicking up stink over Bidens plans to apply yearly tax on the unrealised profits from investments and stocks but seem to be fine with property tax frickery.
What's the worst case, be forced to sell for massive profit and just buy another place? If it's a pensioner on a fixed income who never wants to move they can just draw on equity
What if you actually like your house and invested a lot of sweat equity into it? It's pretty fricked up that once you have nice thing Mr Goverment can come along and make you pay more for or sell it only to start the process all over again.
Better gentrification than decay
Okay zoom zoom. You will never own a house.
And if I do?
Besides, you really think negative equity is a better alternative?
all houses went up in price
if he sells and buys another house he just loses money (fees, taxes)
real eatate appreciation is only a good thing if you own multiple properties or are moving to a cheaper region
It's unfortunate when gentrification pushes poor people out of a familiar neighbourhood. At least it's probably the best of all scenarios in having to sell a home. Prices in this area have gone up disproportionate to others, so even if they move to a more affordable neighbourhood it'll be to one just as good if not better than when they bought the place. No doubt with some profit to boot.
don't try to justify this kind of stuff to the house-poor anon, people whose "most valuable asset" is a pile of dimensional lumber and drywall didn't have this stuff spoonfed to them before pulling the trigger
>the government says the house you bought is now too good for you, get out or get shot
>you should be glad the house is worth more now, isn't that so nice for the house?
I too hate it when my assets massively increase in value, in fact I'd rather my house become worthless to save on tax. God willing we'll have a housing crisis and I'll go into negative equity!
The huge increase in "value" of US housing stock over the last few years had to do with sales prices going up due to historically low mortgage rates.
Now that the rates have gone back up, those price hikes have largely cooled off and the red hot sellers market isn't what it was.
What I'm getting at is that looking at recent comp sales prices alone is not enough to paint a full picture of real value of property in an area. Furthermore, there isn't enough granularity with this type of assessments, so you'll wind up with neighborhoods that skyrocket in apparent "value" according to the tax man, when in fact its a ghetto shithole that wasn't actually seeing real increases in sales prices but is located close to more desirable neighborhoods that did.
According to the tax man, my house has nearly tripled in "value" over the last decade, but in reality you couldn't sell a house here for any more now than you could years ago (it's a depressed area)
Well a situation in which land prices are increasing but sale prices aren't is an unusual one indeed
In my case, I'm describing a discrepancy between assessed values and actual sales prices.
Granted, mine is an edge case. But actual house sales prices have gone way way up across the board nearly nationwide over the last 20 years in a way that isn't balanced with an increase in income for the average person.
This isn't like an area gentrifying and becoming more valuable which lets housepoor people sell and then relocate to less expensive areas-- this is largely a situation where almost all of the housing prices and rents have gone up nationwide. At the end of the day that just leaves housepoor people paying increased taxes and having less options than before.
Where I'm at, land prices spiked stupid high over the past 10 years because there was a boom in marijuana and hemp in our area. Brain damaged stoner morons from all over showed up and bought land to grow on. Values went through the roof. Now that they've all lost their shirts (gee, who would have thought that stoners aren't good at growing anything besides a couple of plants in their grandma's basement), they're trying to sell for stupid amounts. The problem is that they shit up the land with hacked together structures, garbage, greenhouses, and piles of old irrigation trash. Even the nicer places have everything set up for growing hemp, and they're trying to sell them as a functioning operation, with a matching price.
A housing crisis is when house prices are too high and normal people with a mid tier job can't afford to own a home any more so everything gets bought up by absentee landlords that own a dozen properties or chinese speculators. A lot of cities ARE in a housing crisis.
Brother did you even read the second sentence of your own screenshot
it's the same problem, the bubble is when prices are to high and then the crash is when the bubble pops. It's artificial value inflation propped up by predatory investment from banks giving bad loans, foreign investors stockpiling and taking real estate off the market, and recently unprecedented levels of new currency entering the system, it will continue to climb until enough people like OP lose their homes and no one new buys them, foreign and speculative money pulls out and the economy goes to shit for another decade and most of the real people involved gets their lives ruined while the government hoofs a few billion over to the banks again.
Kek, my neighbour moved to a new house (not far), and her old one never went up for sale, and sat vacant for over a year. Turns out the bank bought it. I guess the just sat on it for a while.
Sarcastic boomer wisdom.
>$ is bigger means I'm richer
It isn't money until you sell it, or borrow against the equity. But you still get taxed on the assessment which has virtually nothing to do with what the house would actually sell at - this is why it's homosexual Black person aids government bullshit.
My house is a piece of shit but it still went up nearly double from when I bought it - but so did every other shit box in my city, making a lateral move pointless. (I don't like my current house.) The only way I can benefit from this bubble is by selling to the next bag holder and fricking off to another province - or country, which is too difficult right now.
So I really am not excited about my assessed house value going up massively if every other house in my province is going up massively. I'm "up" because everything else is inflated too.
Fellow Canadian homeowner detected, on paper a millionaire but living pay check to pay check
Do you think our government will admit letting more people into our country than we build houses was pretty fricking stupid?
Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahah
Never, they’ll double down. I saw a tag line on the boomer news not long ago: “Minister of Immigration says we need more immigrants skilled in construction to help meet housing needs,” I shit you not. We’re utterly fricked.
Kind of the same here in the US. They've spent the last 50 years brainwashing everybody into thinking that going to college and getting a job in tech, medicine, or whatever is the only viable path and frick you if you are in the trades. In fact, they punish you for being a skilled tradesperson. Now that there's a shortage of those skills, it's all about letting in people from third world countries to do those jobs. Oh, except, they push those people into college too, and the pajeets will do tech jobs for cheaper than anybody else, and who cares if they are worse at it, and can't communicate, because they're cheap. I'm ready for the asteroid.
>Do you think our government will admit letting more people into our country than we build houses was pretty fricking stupid?
Just cut down some trees
It’s pretty cold up here m8.
>we must reduce our carbon footprint
>I know, let’s invite millions of immigrants from relatively low carbon footprint countries to a country that, by necessity, has an extremely high per capita carbon footprint
It’s all horseshit.
> opposes every multi-family housing project because muh property value (how's that working out?)
> everything gets shot down, not enough housing
> blames immigrants
Nice strawman
I only oppose the ones in my neighborhood.
Why can't I have no immigrants and no multi-family homes. Why can't these Black folk and hispanics stay in their own fricking country, you wretch israelite.
>muh asset
It's a liability unless you sell or rent it
It's only a real asset if you have multiple properties you dumb frick. The appreciation does you no good if you only have a single house.
>but I can sell it for more
Unless you want to be homeless you will need a house, and all real estate went up.
So you're saying a residence is a liability?
A house is capital that isn't earning revenu. According to capitalist dogma that is a bad thing and should be punished.
And it is through the magic of property taxes. If you want to know who actually owns your home, stop paying them and you’ll find out.
That anon lives rent free in his parents basement in the hopes he eventually moves out.
You think someone who doesn't understand how personal wealth is fundamental to capitalism can afford a down payment??
On a balance sheet it would be but a home obviously has value beyond a strictly monetary sense.
Not exactly, since otherwise you would have to rent. I'm just saying that general real estate appreciation does you no good if you only own one property.
Boomer moronic logic to think it's a good thing
Mine has doubled in price aswell
If I sell I can't even afford to buy another house here and need to move an hour further away from the city
The only reason it's good is it you're using as leverage for a loan for buying another property or something similar
Otherwise is complete fricking bullshit because rent also skyrockets and makes people homeless
>I am looking for ways to lower my property value for my next audit.
Remove deck or detach it from the house. Remove/disguise sheds. Do not improve the property. Appeal at local boards of tax review and correct the record on things (see what info they have on your house, if there's problems you have like old roof/foundation issues then tell them).
>I cannot realistically afford another 50% increase
Welcome to middle class. Now go back.
>Wow would you look at that, my homes value was shit except for the 4 month before taxes are due where it went up $100,000 and will be shit right after I pay it.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps
>waah look at me the poor homeowner
frick you homosexual. sell your house and go rent like the rest of us
>kicking your fellow man
Why not direct your anger towards those responsible?
Whom and how? Extra points for non-minecraft applicable strategies
Well start with your local government, write some nasty letters, run for office and otherwise rally the townsfolk.
I get what you’re saying, and not to be a dick, but that sounds like something somewhere between a complete waste of time and fricking awful depending on which approach you suggest.
Well you did ask for non-minecraft
Yeah well, I was hoping the real world wasn’t a colossal shitshow. I’m old enough to know better, I’m just not very clever.
>and fricking awful
Its funny you say this, because your attitude is precicely why things get bad. Being responsible for my community? Thats not stimulating enough! Someone else should do it.
I can’t disagree with you but politics at any level seems horrid to me. Even good people with good intentions who get into it seem to become corrupted by it. My soul is sufficiently stained as it is, thank you very much.
Believe it or not, you would do better in politics than a person with good intentions.
Thanks I think. I mean I’ve read Plato and I can’t disagree with his assessment either (namely that by refusing to participate you ensure you’ll be governed by your inferiors) but it all just seems so tiresome. My society hates me for the accident of my birth.
Do you not understand how stupid the point you are trying to make is? People are just trying to live in their fricking house you moron. How can you even utilize the value until you move, when other places have also increased their "value", or pull out an equity loan which just is more debt slaving?
>tax based on value of property
What kind of sorcery it is? All of a sudden living in middle European shithole doesn't seem that bad.
You've seriously never heard of a land tax?
There is land tax, but its small. In my country its 250€ per year
Europoors don't have a value based land tax because only the rich own land.
I pay one LOL. It's based on area of property or building and what it's used for (home, barn, garage etc.). Not on value evaluated by some random idiot.
>someone with land worth 100K pays the same land tax as someone with land worth 10x as much
How values of similar pieces of land could be different?
A home's 200m2 of land in the city surrounded by amenities is more valuable land than one in a ghost town
>A home's 200m2 of land in the city surrounded by amenities is more valuable land than one in a ghost town
By who's standard? If you're a onions soaked cum sock who would starve if it weren't for uber eats, I can see that being the case. I pay extra to avoid being close to an apocalyptic hellscape.
Ok go move there then for cheap
I said similar ffs. Like two plots of land next to each other.
In my case local government sets tax rates, so if you live in super fancy place taxes would be higher compared to bumfrick nowhere.
>"It's based on area of property or building and what it's used for"
>present two properties of the same area and usage
>NO YOU IDIOT IT'S NOT BASED OFF THAT
In many places in the US the property taxes are there because there isn't a VAT.
That's because land values aren't regularly appraised. In germany for example people are paying taxes based on the land value in the year 1963/1935 (depends on region).
Ahh, German efficiency
Some countries (mexico) typically do something sane: like lower the taxes if you improve your house.
I heard from my social studies teacher that he got his taxes lowered because he was renovating his upper floor and it was a construction zone. For years.
Yup. That's a thing in Mexico. The hotel I stayed in in 2002 had a top floor that was completely unfinished. Rebar sticking out everywhere, cinder block half-walls...it became our party spot.
And Satan partied with us!
>taxes lowered because he was renovating his upper floor and it was a construction zone. For years.
This is extremely common in third world countries. The top floor is always unfinished with obvious rebar sticking out and a pile of bricks up there because there's a tax incentive involved with unfinished structures. It's all over the middle east and the med.
Saw it a lot in Ecuador too. Funny that there's no "shit or get off the pot" law that limits how many years you can take to finish construction.
If you make a nice house, the government comes and takes it in China, so almost every house has an unfinished top floor like this
So assuming you have a 20-30 year loan, refinance for 30 years, take the difference in payments and put that in the bank, use that to pay your property tax, or the part that has increased at least. Extend your time rather than the dollar amount, in effect. Do this until you're making more money, then start paying more on the mortgage until you've got it down to the time period you had it financed for in the first place.
Does the US not have an equivalent to hardship reviews
many states in fact do, mine for example exempts seniors of something like 75% of the tax
Assessors just a picture of my house from the outside. My property's land value went up 50% and the building value went up almost nothing. Now I get to pay more tax because of it. The entire city and all the neighbouring small towns have also gone up similarly so there's not much opportunity to sell high and buy low, especially since borrowing rates are much higher now.
I built a fence and the city declared it was worth 15 thousand dollars, so this increased my property tax by some amount like 100 bucks a year or some shit. When I called them to ask where they got the valuation at they never called back I bugged them for months to tell me where they got the evaluation at. I refused to pay my property taxes until I got this answer. The police showed up and I got my day in court. Town hall representatives showed up and basically said in the most legal talk you have ever heard that they pretty much made up the evaluated price.
I thought for sure the judge was going to side with me and then he was like "welp there you go thats where the price came from, pay your taxes or we will take your shit" So I paid the taxes.
one year later after everybody had a minute to forget about me I went around town and smashed in their windshield with rocks. The only one that was mentioned in the press was the judge.
Being the owner of the local glass shop I refused service to them all. LOL frick those gays
Did you not hire a lawyer?
nope a lawyer was more than the cost of years of the additional taxes.
I have done some yard work and stuff since then and non of that has caused an increase in taxes. I dont know why, these people are fricked in the head.
Are you just saying that or did you actually consult with lawyers and ask them what their price was? If the Town Hall didn't even have an argument, even the cheapest lawyer would squash them in court.
Theres no "smashing in court" if the judge sides with them.
You sound naive if you simply just stood there and did nothing but "represent" yourself like an idiot.
Yes I checked with one, only one because he wanted 2 grand to show up. He says he charges 250/hr and a day in court is 8 hours. he will do hourly work for simple things he doesn't leave his office for but a day in court is 8 hours minimum. I figured that would be consistent amongst all lawyers so I didn't even check with others.
>I figured that would be consistent amongst all lawyers so I didn't even check with others.
Okay well it's not, and you need to stop living your life based off of assumptions. The only benefit of "capitalism" is that you can simply go to the competition and tell them about the other guy, and help boost his reputation at a more reasonable cost.
most things don't vary widely, like when I have purchased vehicles have checked around and they were all pretty close in price for the exact same vehicle. Even if the other guys only wanted one quarter of what he wanted that would still be $500. which still would have been more than its worth.
So my recommendation to you would be to stop being so fricking dumb. I put some thought into it and the best easiest and cheapest option was to just show up by myself. Even if I brought in some fancy pants million dollar lawyer the judge probably would have still told me to get fricked.
Again, you haven't confirmed anything and are just making a bunch of assumptions. And no, $500 for a property you are planning to live on for the rest of your life or extended period of time is not a lot.
You're the only dumb one here, when it comes to money you prefer to throw it away. Only idiots live with a defeatist attitude.
Don't complain about property taxes when you willingly allow people to show a stick up your arse and force you to pay more money. homosexual.
well I guess you could go call a bunch of lawyers then. Im confident that I am correct. I dont need to waste time to insure that.
Ive already sold that property. What was that about assumptions?
Yes, you're confident about a bunch of assumptions. With every property you own, you'll let them raise your property taxes to whatever they want to.
No Im talking about the fact that you tried calling me out on making assumptions when I didn't while you actually did make assumptions.
None of this means anything any ways I got what I wanted, I won, I made a bunch of money. That shit was like 7 houses ago. Go frick yourself.
I currently work in a town hall in the US and it's mostly crooked as shit. Bend and twist the laws for whoever they like/don't like and the town management and judges will always favor the town if a citizen makes enough noise.
Just to submit an appeal of a town assessment/decision is $1000 minimum and that's before filing in court.
The assessors office is made up of divorced women who, like you described, just guess what things are valued at and make it impossible to appeal it or get refunded overpaid taxes.
Most planning departments are staffed by mongoloids who can barely keep from drooling on the paperwork. I can't count the number of times I've gone in to ask a question, gotten an answer that I didn't like, got back in line and talked to a different person, and gotten a completely different answer.
>homes that look like a crackhouse still have property taxes over $140
>if you fixed up the fixer upper homes you'd just greatly increase your property taxes
So is the key to never fix the outside of your home, and only fix the inside?
>https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/property_tax_tips.asp
>article literally says "don't make your home look nice, don't fix up your home"
What is wrong with this country?
In my country we have a house tax that is based on the value of your house, which is determined by the sale prices of houses near you. It tends to lead to old people having to sell up if they bought a house in an area that gets gentrified, lose 33% of the sale price through ~~*capital gains taxes*~~ and make a massive downgrade to something tiny and shitty. If they get sick and have to go to a nursing home the government will steal their house to pay for it and leave their children with nothing, unless they turn the deeds over to their children but dumb boomers are too moronic to do that.
My own house is in an economically depressed area with very little government presence, my tax band is self reported so I just always return the lowest one possible as they are never going to check when they have plenty of other tards to shake down.
What country taxes 33% on a residence?
Its 33% of the sale price, not 33% yearly tax on the home value. I think that would cause giga-aids inflation
That's what I meant, what country taxes 33% on the sale of your home?
In Australia at least there's no CGT on selling your main residence if you've had it for at least a year
Ah sorry I misunderstood your post, I thought 33% was normal. It's Ireland btw. Our top rate of tax is 48%, sales tax is 23%, and also a tax haven with the lowest corporate tax in the world at 12%. Rent is taxed at 51% unless you are a foreign based REIT in which case you don't have to pay taxes, they often buy whole new housing estates to rent them back to the goyim. We are a welfare state too so we lots of scroungers who don't work, who could blame them really? All our young people emigrate to Australia and are replaced by 100,000 refugees per year coming for bennies and to undercut the natives.
Ireland also has Primary Residence CGT exemption so it's not all bad
https://www.revenue.ie/en/gains-gifts-and-inheritance/cgt-reliefs/principal-private-residence-ppr-relief.aspx#:~:text=A%20Principal%20Private%20Residence%20(PPR,the%20property%20as%20your%20home.
Does the ~~**~~ mean “capitalist” or something?
Something like that, yeah. A piece of friendly unsolicited advice: leave this website now while you still can and never look back.
That’s cool I hate ~~*capitalist*~~ too.
I feel as though perhaps I have been rused. I still think you should probably get out while you can if you can, if not for your own sake then for the sake of those who care about you.
yeah, you can't just blame everything on the israelites. I mean you think paying capital gains tax is some kind of israeliteery? It's just paying fricking taxes, and in a way that allows you - as a rich person - to drop your overall tax responsibilities.
It's just rich people using the system to get richer. And most of them are Christians.
PrepHole is goddamned incredible. People can visit here, get real advice, without immediately getting infected by the rest of the site.
OP if you're even still part of this discussion one big suggestion I'd make is, don't be smart in your designs. Inspectors, auditors, detectives, fire marshalls, attorneys etc. know exactly what to look for in "deliberate" damage, because people do it all the time, so you really want to break something big/damaging as dumbly as possible.
Diy is fantastic compared to most of the other boards. There’s a reason it’s my fav. Even so, assuming the other anon didn’t ruse me, this place is a trap in more ways than one.
The people who set the value of your property are the same people who tax you on a percentage of that value. There is no incentive for them to ever lower your value.
They kept going up even after the housing collapse in 2007
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/MellodyHobson/lower-property-tax-assessment/story?id=10264606
I knew a guy who was upset at them valuing his home high because of his hardwood floors, so he carpeted over all of them.
The only real way you're going to lower your property's value is to entice black people to move into your neighborhood. But nobody wants that.
Look at the increased taxes as a benefit. Higher taxes means fewer poor people can move in and shit up your neighborhood.
Sometimes shit like this makes me want to live out of a, PrepHole'd to acceptable housing levels, van or RV. I wonder how fricked taxes are for undeveloped land.
In Detroit, some people just go out in the yard and fire half a dozen rounds out of a handgun every couple months. This is a proven, effective strategy to keep the gentrification at bay.
Get estimates on various projects around the house. Take estimates to the property tax hearing. Be nice and cordial. This works in Texas at least.