By Michael Kolomatsky
March 28, 2024
Updated 12:10 p.m. ET
The median price for a single-family home in the United States rose about 40 percent from 2019 to 2022, peaking at $480,000 before receding to about $417,000 at the close of 2023. The higher home prices have led to higher property taxes, adding even more to a monthly housing budget. A recent study by CoreLogic found that from 2019 through 2023, the median U.S. single-family property-tax bill rose by about 24 percent, to about $2,826.
Property taxes are based on a homeās assessed value and the local tax rate. . . .
Donāt worry folks.
I may have predicted a number of bubbles
(home prices, tech stocks, crypto, the metaverse, NFTs etc.) but this time it is not a bubble.
Taxes are not in a bubble, they will not drop suddenly and return to normal.
The median price for a single-family home rose about 40 percent from 2019 to 2022, peaking at $480,000 before receding to about $417,000.
But median is not average.
āMedian home price risesā tells us āHome prices may or may not be moving up but low and middle end homes are not selling.ā
Thatās okay if you have a big home and were hoping to sell it to a rich person.
But it is bad news for middle-class buyers and middle-class sellers.
Fear not. Median home prices are moving down. (see chart below)
The market could thaw by late this year or early 2025
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As for property taxes (the point of the article) they are paid out of incomes and they have increased more rapidly than incomes.
Thatās bad for everyone (except government.)
meĀ·diĀ·an
/ĖmÄdÄÉn/
adjective
1.
denoting or relating to a value or quantity lying at the midpoint of a frequency distribution of observed values or quantities, such that there is an equal probability of falling above or below it.
The best measure we have for average prices for resale homes is the Case Shiller
It comes out monthly, roughly 4 months behind.
Most recent one came out Tuesday. It showed a small 0.1% M-o-M decrease in home prices. (Third decrease in a row.) In fact resale home prices dropped in 17 out of its core 20 markets.
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But if your selling really soon you can still probably get a good price.
(Then ya have to figure out where to live, huh?)
So the value of your illiquid asset increased, as did the tax portion of itās annual costs. That annual cost comes out of your liquid assets/income. Crow some more now.
You either understand investments, realized versus unrealized capital gains, liquid vs illiquid assets and the difference assets and income. But you are correct about me not bothering to explain it all to you.
Then I guess you have never had Series 7 and Series 66 Securities Licenses, never been registered with FINRA under the Advisors Act of 1940, never acted as a fiduciary, never did an income vs expense analysis. If you had, you would know the difference between an unrealized notional increase in a real estate asset and the effect the increased tax and insurance costs, incurred because of the increased assessment, will have on cash flow (which comes out of income). Oh, and you donāt actually have the extra $80,000. You have an asset that is worth $80,000 more in the opinion of the government for the purpose of charging you more tax. Its actual value wonāt be know until you sell it, as its actual value is only what someone is actually willing to pay you for it.
Focusing on an unrealized capital gain, with an attached annual tax assessment, while ignoring the impact of the increased assessment on the homeownerās cash flow, just demonstrates weak analytical skills. In the case of an owner who still has a mortgage, the escrow on the vast majority of these homes is going to add a couple hundred dollars to the monthly payment. Where is that extra funding supposed to come from? You canāt strip a few shingles, a window frame and a couple square feet of drywall and take it to the bank to plus up the account. For someone living paycheck to paycheck, any increase in costs, let alone hundreds of dollars a month extra, can lead to the financial tipping point.