My last house pushed me into bankruptcy. I could make the mortgage payment, but maintenance, insurance, taxes and upkeep broke me. I sweated out every time a neighboring property went up for sale, wondering what kind of assholes would soon be living next to me. Never again! Owning your own home was once the American dream. Now its the American nightmare!

Selling a home you've owned for a long time does indeed trigger high taxes on dollar inflation.

But it's worse than that! If you trigger the capital gains threshold (more than $250k profit if you're single, more than $500k if you're married), and you will be 63 yrs old or older before the end of the year, you may trigger IRMAA penalties on your Medicare. Total taxable income above $109k if you're single, $218k if you're married, triggers IRMAA.

My Medicare Parts B and D IRMAA penalty amounts to $529 per month additional, above the regular costs. That's an additional $6,348 for the year.

If my wife were also on Medicare, we as a couple would be paying double that, a $12,696 penalty. Luckily she's younger and still on our Christian healthcare plan. We already paid a butt load of capital gains income tax on the sale of our home, now this.

Medicare premiums next year will cost me $732 per month, which is almost 3 times what my Christian healthcare cost. And the coverage is worse with Medicare!

Medicare coverage is pretty good. Medicare A has been paid for through your years of work and Medicare B and a good supplement are well worth it. My last hospital bill exceeded 100 grand and was covered completely.

Florida is looking to kill property taxes on primary residences. There's enough commercial property/ second homes and taxes to make up the shortfall. DeSantis is looking to get it passed asap. It would be an amazing kick to our economy.

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:

quote:

Originally posted by mr kablammo:
Renting an apartment here is at least $1,400/mo. Multiple by 10 and you get $00.00 at the end.

It would be regular rent increases but I can't deal with people so close to me. Even considering never having to pay for repairs and upkeep.

This is a fallacy. IF you are renting you are paying for ALL of those things, plus a profit to the landlord versus just paying all of those things. Landlords wouldn't rent properties IF it didn't turn a profit.

I thought it was common knowledge,
People don't purchase homes for themselves .

They spend money on homes and keep spending
$7,000.00 per year on up grades , up keep,
Maintenance, improvements , insurance,
and eye appeal so that their sons and daughters
will reap the rewards eventually.

In estates trusts and God forbid wills.

Any enjoyment, gratification or pleasure
Is just some gravy.

A couple of years ago our county initiated a program where seniors over 65 can go down to the office, fill out a short form and your property taxes are frozen for that year.

You have to do this each year to qualify. Last year it took me less than five minutes to do it. Pretty nice.

Alabama has homestead exemption for 65+. I'll find out more about it in a few years.

As far as property taxes, like others, a large portion goes to support the local city school system where I live now. My kids are grown and I have no other family attending. But I don't complain too much, because the city school system is ranked in the top 10 in the state. This keeps property values up, which also keeps some riff-raff out, regardless of ethnicity.

Ironically, in the town where our kids grew up and went to school (county school system), our town contributed 75% of the sales tax and property tax for the county, but only received about 20% in return for the schools. The majority went to the schools in the county seat, where the Board of Education was located. So our school system was so-so, and the property values were a little stagnant.

Home ownership isn't for sissies. Utilities, mortgage, insurance, lawn maintenance all factor in. Right now, it accounts for roughly 50% of my pay. Thankfully my vehicles are paid off.

quote:

Originally posted by Glynn863:
Home ownership isn't for sissies. Utilities, mortgage, insurance, lawn maintenance all factor in. Right now, it accounts for roughly 50% of my pay. Thankfully my vehicles are paid off.

Mine's at about 24% gross/31% net. Which is fairly comfortable for me since I don't have any other debt.

quote:

As far as property taxes, like others, a large portion goes to support the local city school system where I live now. My kids are grown and I have no other family attending. But I don't complain too much, because the city school system is ranked in the top 10 in the state. This keeps property values up, which also keeps some riff-raff out, regardless of ethnicity.

Ironically, in the town where our kids grew up and went to school (county school system), our town contributed 75% of the sales tax and property tax for the county, but only received about 20% in return for the schools. The majority went to the schools in the county seat, where the Board of Education was located. So our school system was so-so, and the property values were a little stagnant.

That's always the argument for tax increases...
We've got to have a high performing school district, it's for the children, and it will help your property values.

The problem is, every school district is using the same argument and it usually works on the voters who usually vote for the tax increases. Then they run the school elections in April, when you get a < 10% turnout, and it's almost guaranteed to pass.

We would have better schools, and it would be much more "fair" if we didn't turn over our children to the government for their formation and education. Socialism is a failure.

Texas doesn't have income tax so they make up for it by having high property taxes (e.g. my property taxes are 5 figures). I'm paying 3x more for property taxes now than I was 20 years ago living in Orange County, California. Let that sink in.

About 1/3 is MUD which is very fair as they make the new areas pay off their utilities instead of making existing areas subsidize utilities for new areas.

I don't have kids, but the intermediate school district portion is 33% of bill and an additional 5% of bill goes for the community college. Yes, I'm subsidizing somebody's associate degree, and have to vote no repeatedly at elections so I'm not subsidizing other's children being entertained (e.g. astroturf for football stadiums, natatorium for swim teams, etc).

The one that's not big (~2% of bill) but chaffes my ass is hospital district. We're the nearest hospitals to one of Houston's war zones (i.e. 1960 and 45) so their gunshot and stabbing victims get transported across county lines to our 3 ERs and 3 hospitals. Additionally, the hospital district is the furthest north hospitals so the people in rural counties use it to. County residents get zero discount when we actually use the ER, spend the night in the hospital, etc.

I'm actually pretty fortunate as we have a sane county judge and court of commissioners. Our population has increased 20% since 2020, but they haven't increased spending 20%. That means they're lowering property tax rate which has been 100% offsetting the higher appraisal values. I know other counties in Texas haven't been so lucky and they've been getting the maximum property tax increase per year since 2020. If you get the maximum homestead residential 10% increase per year that's a 61% increase in 5 years (e.g. a $10k property tax turns into a $16.1k property tax for exact same home with exact same county services).

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
and it will help your property values.

"...on which we will eventually charge you more tax."

Followed by, "and yes, we will find ways to spend that money wastefully, and then complain that we need more."

We The People (for the most part) don't get to arbitrarily increase our revenues (wage/salary). Why should government get to do that?

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:
In Texas, a portion of the taxes freeze at 65 but you still have to pay taxes.

You also get the over-65 exemption, which is a huge reduction in the tax burden. I live just outside Houston city limit but still in Harris County and have always dreaded this time of the year because of tax bills (property, school district and MUD). But this year, being eligible for the exemption for the first time, I was so relieved with the big tax reduction.

Just a fyi, when you get to 65, they’ll notify you that you now qualify for the exemption. But it’s not automatic, so you must apply for it. That’s the important part they don’t bother to tell you. I only found that out talking with my older brother.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:
In Texas, a portion of the taxes freeze at 65 but you still have to pay taxes.

You also get the over-65 exemption, which is a huge reduction in the tax burden. I live just outside Houston city limit but still in Harris County and have always dreaded this time of the year because of tax bills (property, school district and MUD). But this year, being eligible for the exemption for the first time, I was so relieved with the big tax reduction.

Just an fyi, when you get to 65, they’ll notify you that you now qualify for the exemption. But it’s not automatic, so you must apply for it. That’s the important part they don’t bother to tell you. I only found that out talking with my older brother.

Thanks, I was not aware of that.

You got to live somewhere. Paying off a mortgage is cheaper than renting for me.

As for property taxes, I like the CA proposition that freezes your property tax to when you bought it. Funding for fire services is necessary.

quote:

It's dollar devaluation, not that my guns have become more valuable over time.

Matt, this has been driving me crazy recently. The media and Dema (but I repeat myself) have gotten the public to talk and think about “affordability”; and they blame Trump—TRUMP!—for high prices. Inflation has been reduced to just above 2%, but prices are still high in the grocery store! Of course, they are, you idiots! The Biden administration made the dollar worth less. That won’t go away. It won’t ever go away. And not a single Republican voted for the horrendous boondoggles of the Biden years.
I admit it started with Bush and TARP in 2008, which Obama made much worse; then went overboard with COVID. The government—the public health establishment, which Pence and Trump permitted—destroyed the private economy; then was “forced” to “give people money” to keep businesses open.
What a catastrophe. As Trump said around Easter 2020: “You can’t make the cure worse than the disease.” But they did.
Inflation is theft of your savings. We were in Russia when the first (or was it second?) devaluation of the Ruble happened. Middle class people’s savings were wiped out. Then it happened again, and again. And the people blamed it on the westernized government, so they ended up with Putin.

In Utah there is a property tax relief program if you're over 66 yrs old. However there are property value and income limitations, which make it worthless for most of us. Especially with the recent increase in property values greatly exceeding inflation.

It's not like we have low state income tax or low sales tax either! In my zip code the sales tax is nearly 10% because of all the tourists. Yet the city still complains they need more money...

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

I know other counties in Texas haven't been so lucky and they've been getting the maximum property tax increase per year since 2020. If you get the maximum homestead residential 10% increase per year that's a 61% increase in 5 years (e.g. a $10k property tax turns into a $16.1k property tax for exact same home with exact same county services).

This is me and my area. 10% is the max they could raise your property tax every year and my county has. So over a 10 year period, my property tax went up 100%, except that I protested it every year so it’s more like a 100% increase over 13-14 years. Either way it is not sustainable and I’ll be forced out.

quote:

Inflation is theft of your savings. We were in Russia when the first (or was it second?) devaluation of the Ruble happened. Middle class people’s savings were wiped out.

Yes, exactly.
My largest financial fear is a "global reset" which wipes out debt, but also wipes out (devalues) the dollar and therefore everything I've saved, which is mostly in various retirement funds.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

My largest financial fear is a "global reset" which wipes out debt, but also wipes out (devalues) the dollar and therefore everything I've saved, which is mostly in various retirement funds.

As long as the investments are not simple savings types of accounts, I think overall the damage would be less. Money markets, bonds, and cash will, of course, become worthless.

But businesses will reset along with the currency. If they, for example, issued 1 new DigiDollar for every 1,000 US Dollars, businesses would be receiving revenue in the new DigiDollar. My stock would covert to being valued in that new currency, too.

Many businesses will fail in the chaos, and the economy would probably seriously tank for a few years. So it would be a bad ride. Perhaps not horrible though, in terms of long term investments.

We are terribly overweight in Silver and Gold right now, but I am letting it ride in part as a hedge against some kind of currency reset. I don't expect such a thing in the next few years, but as long as the metals are up I will not rebalance them.

Perhaps a more realistic threat is significant inflation but without any formal devaluation or issuance of new currency.