Fuck me. Just got the annual insurance renewals through my broker (I go through many many companies to secure the best deal). Homeowners and auto, significant increases, to go with large increases last year. Tejas is no longer the inexpensive place to live. It’s becoming California in cost thanks to all the people who have migrated here from other states. If I sold my house today, I’d have to move 80 miles out to pay less for a home. I bought in 2006 and in 13 years things have dramatically changed here, just too many fucking people. Traffic, property taxes, insurance, all through the roof.

I have a modest house and feel like I’m paying for some baller crib. Same thing with the cars, combined I put about 9000 miles a year on them and I’m paying basically double. The multi-line discount or whatever it’s called for having 2 vehicles, shit I’m paying 100% on both, no discount, and my broker has shopped around. In 3-4 years, my homeowners has gone up $1,000 a year. I added up vehicle insurance, homeowners insurance, medical insurance, it’s now above 10% of my annual GROSS income. My property taxes have doubled since I bought the house. I called the realtor about selling and he strong advised it, stating there is no where to escape to in any kind of reasonable driving distance. I could buy 70 miles away and lower the mortgage but it would be eaten up in monthly fuel costs, vehicle degradation due to the mileage. The hidden part of Tejas, is homeowners insurance and taxes. Homeowners it’s the highest in the US, vehicles are as well. I’m just pissed and venting. First of the year and I get hit with home, auto, medical insurance increases AND Fucking property tax increases. I’m sick of it. What middle class? 2019 is going to be a substantial year for me. Gonna have to be tight from here on out, and I’ve already cut out so much, like going out to eat. I’d sell and rent but rent is more here. I have a professional job and am contemplating moonlighting at restaurant waiting tables, working at Home Depot. The American Dream is going up in price exponentially. And I haven’t even covered the IRS. And I live within my means.

Sorry to bitch, I’m just tired of this shit. My yearly salary increase is just not and cannot keep up with these rising inflation costs. A LEO I know has ballistic over the same things, has a modest house, drives a truck and it’s not a king ranch or lariat. He said it’s just going to mean more off duty clothed work, missing more time with the family. Crazy days.

Join the club. In South Florida homeowners has gone up 10-15% a year for the past 3-4 years and taxes have gone up 10% a year for the past 3 years. Auto insurance has stayed the same.

Not rubbing it in, I feel for you guys.

But I'm also reminded of the benefits of living in the ass-end of nowhere. Insurance, both vehicle and homeowner, as well as property taxes pretty much flat after inflation.

I have a broker - but I still shop through other brokers. I have changed brokers 3x in the past 8 years. Each time I saved about $300 annually on home/auto.

My property tax has doubled in 5 years. Insurance for vehicles is outrageous. Between the 2, it’s near $15k a year. Wages are flatline. How does an average working stiff ever make ends meet? There is no way this can go on.

Texas is radically different than it was 20 years ago. I shudder to think about the next 20 years.

Property taxes are out of control where I live. Each year they increase the value of my home. This year it went up $30K and a piece of land I own went up $60K. I put money aside each month to cover property taxes and homeowners insurance. I keep having to increase what I put aside each year. This year it barely covered just the property taxes and I am waiting to get the homeowners insurance bill and I will have to pull money from savings or something to cover that. I work for the state so I don’t get pay increases to help with the cost of living increase. It is bull!

Yeah Tejas loves property taxes.

Don't they take 50% when you die as well?

Yeah, but no state income taxes, right.

The money to run the government has to come from somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by dgshooter:
Yeah, but no state income taxes, right.

The money to run the government has to come from somewhere.

Man you know how bad property taxes are here? The got damm Kalifornians who have completely invaded the state (all metros but especially Austin area) have bitched the state legislators into starting legislation capping property tax somehow. I talked to someone I know quite well who lives right in the thick of Austin proper and he said the Commies are bitching left and right about property taxes here and are trying to get this changed. I’m sitting on the phone listening to this thinking “these mother fuckers are the ones responsible for the massive fucking increases!” If you’d quit moving here the taxes wouldn’t keep going nuts. You moved here and all I got was more traffic and more taxes. I’ve got people at work who make a fair living and can’t afford a house here any longer. Used to be affordable but not any longer. Other people wanted to move due to a growing family, but can’t afford to any longer. Many many people, myself included, could not afford the homes we live in if we bought today. And we also can’t afford to move. My realtor, who strongly advised against selling the house (mistyped in the OP), warned that if I sold, when trying to buy something else I could end up in a bidding war. He is seeing 50k above market in bidding wars. That’s ridiculous. He also said the influx from people out of sate is causing people to get stuck, meaning they want to move but can’t, too much risk of not finding anything they can afford, and/or bidding wars.

Us natives get no benefit from the huge influx of out of staters. Traffic increases, property tax increases, much more competition for employment. I’ve seen contract work, repeatedly, that paid $30-50 an hour driven down to $20-22 an hour currently. That’s scary too. If I lose my job for any reason I’m likely to take a significant salary cut, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. That would force me to sell my house and vehicles, and move out to the complete sticks and be stuck with a monster mother fucker commute for any job.

We have a shit ton of H1B Visas here also from one particular country, take a guess. It’s starting to look like I’m going to be driven out of my state from people coming here from out of the state and foreigners. The H1B visa program was put in place to secure workers for hard to find sectors and that’s not what it’s being used for. It’s being used to displace American workers and hire foreigners for less money. I’m tired of all this shit and getting angry. These people need to go fucking home.

quote:

Originally posted by StorminNormin:
Property taxes are out of control where I live. Each year they increase the value of my home. This year it went up $30K and a piece of land I own went up $60K. I put money aside each month to cover property taxes and homeowners insurance. I keep having to increase what I put aside each year. This year it barely covered just the property taxes and I am waiting to get the homeowners insurance bill and I will have to pull money from savings or something to cover that. I work for the state so I don’t get pay increases to help with the cost of living increase. It is bull!

Past 3 years here, 70k, 50k, and 50k. I protest every year but it’s not doing any good. I’ve got 50k in bids of necessary work to the house for this year’s go around. At that protest hearing I’m likely to get arrested because I’m going to be calling that panel mother fuckers, the c word, name it. County I’m in is notorious for being fucking thieves. And they keep giving these large corporations free tax status for 10 years to move to the county, then they turn around and hit the homeowners with a baseball bat. It’s just not sustainable and I’ve talked to neighbors, colleagues, friends, etc.

For a town of 8,000 people, we have added (by vote) a $30,000,000 school bond, a taxpayer funded community college, & a taxpayer funded hospital (that loses millions of dollars every year).

What chaps my ass, is old people (65+) are exempt from many of these tax increases. There are plain few middle age, middle class families any more. Anyone middle age works out of town & has to commute. There are no middle class jobs here, unless you count taxpayer funded jobs. Private sector jobs pay around $10/hour, just like they did 20 years ago. It’s turning into a retirement community.

Is Tejas different than Texas? At first I thought it was a typo, but I’ve seen it thrice by two different members. I assume we’re not bitching about the cost of ZZ Top tunes.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Is Tejas different than Texas? At first I thought it was a typo, but I’ve seen it thrice by two different members. I assume we’re not bitching about the cost of ZZ Top tunes.

Tejas is Spanish for Texas.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

quote:

Originally posted by StorminNormin:
Property taxes are out of control where I live. Each year they increase the value of my home. This year it went up $30K and a piece of land I own went up $60K. I put money aside each month to cover property taxes and homeowners insurance. I keep having to increase what I put aside each year. This year it barely covered just the property taxes and I am waiting to get the homeowners insurance bill and I will have to pull money from savings or something to cover that. I work for the state so I don’t get pay increases to help with the cost of living increase. It is bull!

Past 3 years here, 70k, 50k, and 50k. I protest every year but it’s not doing any good. I’ve got 50k in bids of necessary work to the house for this year’s go around. At that protest hearing I’m likely to get arrested because I’m going to be calling that panel mother fuckers, the c word, name it. County I’m in is notorious for being fucking thieves. And they keep giving these large corporations free tax status for 10 years to move to the county, then they turn around and hit the homeowners with a baseball bat. It’s just not sustainable and I’ve talked to neighbors, colleagues, friends, etc.

I protest every year as well and this year took it to a formal hearing where I lost, which was pure crap. All of the homes they compared to mine had major remodeling such as the kitchen, floors, bathrooms, etc. My house has had zero improvements so it would not sell for that amount. I found one home just like mine with zero improvements that sold for $25K less than what they valued my house at and used it as the argument for my value and still lost. The majority of our property taxes goes to the school district. Well, the local school district here just finished building a $21M football stadium for the high school. A high school does not need a $21M football stadium. It is out of control.

Same here. My only income is SSDI and since disabled I cannot work any menial job for extra $$ even if I could. As yourself and others here, it's the insurances that are killing my income. In South Miami here near the bay I have to have a Homeowners "and" a Windstorm policy from Citizens Property Ins a state required insurance. And yes, it has doubled and more in the last few years. My auto has doubled because of the wife getting into a three car incident, my Medicare has at least stayed the same but due to being hospitalized from heart attack, my out of pocket expenses have jumped.

What I did out of frustration, had my home re-inspected and found a few new reductions that lowered my premium, like credit for a newer roof, and upgraded hurricane shutters, and credit for an all metal newly installed front door. These few things brought my premium down a little.

Since I'm basically homebound and drive well under 1,000 miles a year, plus the car just sits in a locked garage most of the time, I dropped my collision. My wife still insures for full coverages, and besides we do use her car if and when we need to. There may come a time in the near future I just sell mine anyway, it's a mint 2013 Honda Accord V6 with just at 5,000mi on the ODO. So thats another option

My wife this year is eligible for Medicare so she will be able to drop that overpriced under coverage Obama care junk also.

It all boils down to the greatest thing that's eating up my monthly fixed income....insurances. I was mentioning to my wife that the Government should allow retired seniors on Social Security Incomes to be allowed some kind of tax deduction, even a little, based on the amounts paid for required insurances, for homes, cars, medical etc..

I know, wishful thinking, but insurance companies are killing our incomes, and if you're on a fixed one without potential to work anymore you have to make some hard choices, cutting insurances, moving, or...

Have you shopped your insurance, rather than renew?

It's literally how they get you. Shop every year or every other year to maintain the best premiums.

quote:

There may come a time in the near future I just sell mine anyway, it's a mint 2013 Honda Accord V6 with just at 5,000mi on the ODO. So thats another option

I work from home when not traveling for work (which they pay for, all non-local work so it's airlines / rental cars) and came to the conclusion I didn't need a car, so I sold mine.

Insurance wasn't too bad, but I don't miss paying it either. If I was in your shoes I'd sell it in a heartbeat before the car looses any more value.

For vacations, if we are driving we just rent a new car / SUV locally and pay. But we return it after a week and just walk away from the mess and worry of driving an older car / potentially breaking down on the road (our only car is 15 years old).

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
Have you shopped your insurance, rather than renew?

It's literally how they get you. Shop every year or every other year to maintain the best premiums.

Dude I use a broker man, they go through everyone there is sans Farmers, State Farm and All State. Every year after the broker is done I send my policies out to the above 3. I use a broker for this reason rather than going through a single insurance carrier. They’ve got access to 10, 15, 20 different carriers. That’s their job, to do this, every policy renewal. I’ve talked to them multiple times in recent weeks and they are as pissed off as we are because they have to call all their clients upon annual renewals and tell them how bad they are getting fucked.

Just for shits and giggles, call up Ameriprise through Costco and see what they can do for you?

Ya know, just to keep your broker honest?

Property taxes and homeowners insurance are simply a matter of where you reside. Auto insurance is a function of your driving record and your residence as well. Insurance is a racket. You many wish to invest in their stock. Warren Buffet certainly has.