First-time U.S. home buyers feeling 'defeated' by high prices

reuters.com

3 pointsProAm2 comments

I'm actively looking for a house and it's not the prices that bother me the most. Sure they're higher than I see them but they don't necessarily feel so high that it's a bubble economy. The real thing that bothers me is the extremely high property taxes in a lot of areas. When your monthly property tax is 50% or more of your monthly mortgage payment that is ridiculous. There is no dream of home ownership if the tax man just can come steal it out from underneath you.

selling my grampa's/family's beloved 3-season-access (generously putting it, unfixable at any cost) tiny cabin on a lake because of property taxes was one of the saddest things i've ever done. i had the money to buy it off my uncles, wanted to. but property taxes were >10x what they were when i was born, would have been a huge drain.

i'm generally kind of pro-taxation? property taxes though are vicious. they seem to just spiral up and up. i can understand how California has lived under 1978 Proposition 13 for so long- barely touching existing property taxes, while screwing over everyone who comes latter. it's cruel & callous to allow such a huge & growing burden to arise while not asking those already established to bear a reasonably fair share.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com