Hacker News Reader

Comment by KingMachiavelli | Hacker News Reader

IMO it's due go higher property taxes, the New England states have some of the highest property taxes and high taxes overall which makes land speculation expensive. CA has extremely low property taxes with a loopholes that push the average even lower

Even just a few miles outside NYC, you can get a decent house in NJ for 500K but the property taxes alone will be around 5-10K.

View on HN

Which is literally why you have to farm the land. The agricultural rate can be substantially lower than the residential rate.

I don’t know about MA, but in NY for 7 acres or more you just need to average $10,000 in sales for 2 years. Interestingly if you have les than 7 acres the threshold goes up, but you can lease land to bring yourself over the 7 acres. Additionally, since property tax rates are set at the local municipality level an ag assessment uses state law to cap what the municipality can claim.

This is not tax advice, and I don’t know the law in MA, but probably not to far from NY’s.

There's also the cost of heating in the winter. People budget monthly and housing prices tend to rise to consume surplus income (at least over the past few decades of ZIRP). So rather than dreading your heating bills in the winter, you should appreciate that it's a bill you don't have to pay in the summer. Whereas warmer climates end up paying a higher mortgage year round.

You've just described all those "low cost of housing" homes in Texas. Rundown 30-year old stick homes will run you $400k to $600k and $10k to $15k in property tax.

No state income tax is a lie, it's paid through small home property taxes. Larger land owners invariably go for rural/ag exemptions and reductions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com