Moving to a low-cost-of-living area to retire?

[iris lilies]

$3,500 a year?! So that is like paying $292 a month for rent in perpetuity.

yeah, pretty much. The Man dont give no one a free ride.

And I am 39. But I did not learn this stuff because my parents did not raise me to be financially literate. And I was very late in the game to teach myself financial literacy. I am learning this stuff as I go.

At some point, when you get to financially literate Advanced, you will learn that renting can be a smarter choice than buying that house, a noose around your neck.

For us, owning real estate is the right thing for many reasons, but that is not true for everyone.

[Gardnr]

What are property taxes? How do they work?

This pays for schools, fire department, emergency response and such services in the community. There are city taxes and county taxes. If you live outside city limits they are much lower. We were incorporated about 10 years ago. Our prop tax increase was 50% in one shot!

Others have already discussed the how.

[Alan]

Typically property taxes and homeowners insurance are collected by the mortgage holder and held in escrow as part of your monthly mortgage payment and the mortgage company then makes the annual or semi-annual payments to the taxing authority and insurance company. I never liked the idea of letting the mortgage holder have the use of my money so when I had a mortgage, I never allowed it and simply made my semi-annual payment of approximately $2000 for taxes and the regularly scheduled insurance payments.

As part of your financial literacy education, I would suggest never letting others hold your money for you.

[catherine]

Some areas of the country like Catherine’s New Jersey are known for ridiculously high real estate taxes. We Midwesterners do not know what those in New Jersey do with all that freaking money, it is a mystery to us.

Believe me, it's a mystery to me, too.

But we do have decent public schools. #2, after Massachusetts. (UL, schools account for a huge chunk of a town's property tax budget.)

[iris lilies]

Believe me, it's a mystery to me, too.

But we do have decent public schools. #2, after Massachusetts. (UL, schools account for a huge chunk of a town's property tax budget.)

And yet, the Hermann schools are better* than the .st Louis Public schools and I pay two and a half times as much for St. Louis, when sq footage is equalized. The ghetto culture and gang banger families cost us.

* graduate more students, send more to higher education, have higher test scores

[Williamsmith]

And yet, the Hermann schools are better* than the .st Louis Public schools and I pay two and a half times as much for St. Louis, when sq footage is equalized. The ghetto culture and gang banger families cost us.

* graduate more students, send more to higher education, have higher test scores

Im not a history expert. Not an expert in much, but I believe all this ghetto culture is in part something you can attribute to our past racism. I don’t believe the ghetto people really prefer the ghetto life. But I think like a Minnie trap, once you get in it, it’s damn hard to get out. And all that crap costs the taxpayers plenty.

[JaneV2.0]

NJ taxes always make me feel better about mine. Everything seems to run smoothly here, and our library bonds always pass, so I guess I don't have much to complain about.

[pinkytoe]

Ours in Austin was $12,000 a year last time I looked with the majority of that going to public schools. The municipal and county taxes weren't all that bad.

[razz]

I pay $3200 a year property tax on 1300 sq ft home but a sales tax of 13% on most shopping items. Do you have sales tax as well with those high property taxes?

Ours in Austin was $12,000 a year last time I looked with the majority of that going to public schools. The municipal and county taxes weren't all that bad.

[Williamsmith]

I live in a low cost of living area. But there is a direct relationship between low cost of living and days without sunshine per year. Back in WWII when they were worried about a Japanese Invasion, they built bunkers to store explosives near where I live because bombers could never see the ground for all the cloud cover.