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I had a talk recently with someone who moved from Chicago to Atlanta. He said it's the property taxes that really kill you there. Allegedly, by moving to GA he decreased his property taxes enough to put an extra 100k towards the mortgage for the same monthly payment. I don't know the hard numbers on that myself, but it was enough to convince me that buying property in Chicago was probably a bad idea.

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It's not hard to get that data. The tax rates are public knowledge.

Cook county has just over a 2% per year property tax.

https://www.cookcountyclerk.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/201...

That document shows how varied the property taxes are in Illinois. Moving from "Chicago" to Atlanta for tax reasons is believable depending on whether the person is moving from the City of Chicago or the Suburbs of Chicago.

> On average, the 2018 property tax bill for a home with a market value of $200,000 would be: * City of Chicago: $3272 * North and Northwest Suburbs (Cook County): $4741 * South and West Suburbs (Cook County): $6268 * Dupage County Suburbs: $4556

My sister used to live out in Kane County and her house, which she sold for about 33% less than my downtown condo is worth, was almost double my property taxes. Nearly 1.5 hours driving from downtown!

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