Figuring out sale price for sold homes

[hindsight2020]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

A good while back I did a property tax comparison of W.Plano TX vs an Income/Property Tax comparison of Roswell GA (the closest comparison to W.Plano in Atlanta GA) @ a salary of $100k and a $400k property and it turned out Plano (which has a higher tax rate than Austin) actually came out to be slightly more affordable. I was expecting the inverse.

Now if you really want to take your taxation into overdrive, we could always adopt Illinois model… …which has a higher property tax AND a state income tax too!

It shouldn't surprise you all that much. GA is not a low tax burden state. I too ran similar TX to GA comparison: HH income above 100, below 250, Cen TX property tax rates vis a vis South Atlanta counties (PTC et al) prop taxes. The algebraic relationship to break even on taxes (I don't include sales and excise for simplicity, though I have certain niche mobile property that would be taxed in GA, but not taxed in TX) came around keeping house taxable value at 4x taxable income. Any higher property value and GA was cheaper.

For us as a high income household relative to our meager housing choice footprint, TX continues to be dramatic tax savings so long as we keep the housing footprint cheap. That's not round off errors. GA is a 6% take home paycut for us, at our HH income you can't paper that over with cheaper property taxes, especially for a household who does not pray at the altar of housing peonage. Nevermind the fact the prop tax savings on a cheap place in both states were a meager delta in the first place.

As a result, we're basically looking at SE TN in empty nester years (10 year horizon), and hope the place isn't completely traffic/population congested all to hell by the time it's our turn to relo. The national trends are not promising, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Driving proximity to ATL is the main driver. If the tax situation weren't so stark for GA, we'd consider the NW exurbs, since my potential post-military occupation is a traveling one that doesn't require a daily commute, only a weekly one.


Point being, it truly is a case by case analysis when it comes to total tax burden, as a function of individual household circumstances. The bandied about notion that "it all washes out in the end" is reductionist to a fault, and must certainly has not been the case at all for my HH. And in fairness, the same is true amongst the other no-income tax states we randomly considered. WA is one such example. Same math as TX, but the available housing stock is so insanely high, that unless I get into the semi-arid areas of the east my wife will never go for, I'm not able to realize the gains afforded by my housing flex in TX. In that state's comparative case, I'd be actually ahead in GA at pretty much any HH income.

Other states people think are low tax burden but are anything but imo: WI, IA, SC. Blows the red/blue reductionist tropes right out of the water.

[orngkat]

At a very practical level, here in Colorado I can see what my neighborhood houses have sold for and get a better idea of what mine might sell for, ie for making related financial decisions. Additionally, the TAD shows how each property is financed and how much of a down payment was made which I do think is an invasion of privacy. State income tax here is around 4.5%. On a retirement income with all the deductions, we don't pay any income tax. And...our property taxes on a $400K house are $1200 or so annually vs quadruple that amount or probably more in Austin on a similarly valued house.

[Roadking2003]

Originally Posted by 10scoachrick

Property tax certainly IS worse than income tax...for those who have significantly reduced income after living in a property that is now "worth" 5x what they paid for it. Guess they should just sign over the title to the tax man.

Especially for retired people living on a fixed income.

[Dub D]

To answer the original question, I use the Penny Mac, Zillow, and Redfin estimators and average those three. May not be 100% accurate but that's the best idea I've come up with.

Now you can go back to talking about property tax talk...

[Hollytree]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

Why? What gives the government the right to my private information?
The government has NO right to know anything about my sale price.

Of course they do. When you sell a primary house, any profit over 250k for a single person and any profit over 500k for a married couple is taxable income. A lot of people may be facing this sort of tax since the value of homes has increased so much. Look up the IRS forms. These forms go with your income tax filing in the year you sell.