Property Taxes (Chicago, Naperville, Northbrook: sales, real estate, assessor)

[nikitakolata]

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this (no, being the answer), but is there any way to lower your property tax bill aside from the homeowners exemption? I have been looking at houses in the western suburbs (St. Charles, Geneva, Glen Ellyn, Naperville) and the taxes are just so much higher than what I'm currently paying in the city. The tax difference is significant enough that even if we were to make a decent amount of money on the sale of our house in Chicago, we couldn't afford a house that is any more expensive than what we paid for our house. That is frustrating.

$20k a year in property tax makes me sick to my stomach... especially since I have no kids and don't care one way or another about the schools while I live there; schools are only important for resale to me.

[chet everett]

You should look at homes that are more affordable in towns that are more expensive. Honest.

If you don't want a $20K tax bill look to a town that has a mix of much more expensive of homes than the ones you are looking at.

In many of the more expensive towns the property taxes are a relative bargain...

[gardener34]

Yeah - our area of Kane county is REAL high in my opinion. and our taxes have gone up every single year since we moved here 16 years ago. How did the value of our house increase per the tax assessor when the real world value actually went down? I will never understand that.
I do know people in other townships in this county and their values do not seem as out of line as ours is though.
Used to be cook county was lower property taxes - now offset by high sales tax. Maybe cook county is your answer.
And ditto on the more affordable home the above poster said. Most of your property taxes are schools.
You also want to live in a town where there is a significant amount of some industrial or business - that offsets the property taxes and It would seem that you wouldn't get hit AS hard.

[linicx]

Armed services, seniors, and continuing medical conditions can get a tax break. You can also apply for a lowered tax if the house is appraised for less than the current assessed value. The caveat is [1] the house must be a primary residence and[2] you must live in the house for 2 consecutive January before you can apply for any relief. You can also apply for a tax freeze if you meet certain conditions. And you can appeal to Board of Assessment for further relief. Because we met many of the conditions, paid for a house appraisal, appealed to the board, we were able to lower our taxes more than 50 percent.

The win-win situation is [1] you buy a house that is selling much lower than the assesed value last year and [2] if the sellers accept a low ball offer. Before the bust, you can offer 5% less than the asking price and get the house. My seller took 15% less because it had been on and off the market for three years. But there is a hook.

The caveat is a house that has been empty for more than 100 days without heat or a/c - more than likely has MOLD issues a bottle of bleach will not cure. Mold mitigation is labor intensive and very expensive when walls have to be removed and the house is rebuilt inside. My state licensed environmentalist who tests for mold, states "Mold is the #2 killer in Illinois". The best defense against mold is a MOLD inspection by a state licensed inspector.

If you get tax relief you will pay full taxes the first year you live in the house. If it is $20k this is what you will pay the first tax year. If taxes are a big issue, you might do better to look in surrounding counties or a neighboring state, or consider a house of less value. Your real taxes support the school system your children attend. .

[chet everett]

I'd like to see the data that says any household issue is a "#2 killer", but otherwise linicx' info is pretty solid.

Taxes are not always a negative, as stated that bulk of that money is spent VERY locally and it if fairly easy for anyone to get elected to pretty much any of the Boards that control that tax so your ability to DIRECTLY impact the spending of that tax is excellent.

In addition to looking for towns with a nice industrial base it is also wise to track down which towns have a healthy mix of high value retail -- the local sales tax can 'feed' the local municipality quite well and help to keep property taxes lower than they otherwise would be.

In my experience of being active in real estate and watching local governments for more than 20 years I would say less than 5% of residents have any understanding at all over how the "system" is designed. The vast majority who understand it are the folks who WORK FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT! While many of them are fine people, and do a good job, the sad reality is that very few taxpayers give any thought to pay and benefits that their property taxes support and make very little effort to rein in spending in any meaningful way. Sure referenda get defeated in bad times, but the crazy spending goes on regardless -- the employees just shift priorities so that they get their pay and benefits while roads literally go unmaintained and other services get turned into "fee for service"...

Little bit of rant, but the broader message is that if more folks would spend even a little time, like the OP, to consider taxes before they committ to a town, and to track the government operations after they do move in, the tax situation would be more manageable...

[ccjarider]

Chett:
Your comments about the public lack of interest are true to be sure but I can also say as a recent transplant from WI to IL. IL and Cook County certainly do not make it easy to understand. My property tax bills in WI where fairly straightforward to read. If I called the Village to ask a question, I could get hold of someone who at least attempted to answer.


Cook County is corrupt, no one who works for the gov't gives a sh-t and the data in the bill is so convuluted and difficult to understand that one would have to spend hours tracking down info. Most of us do not have the werewithawl to do this.

Of course Cook County and IL employees know this. They continue to propagate this system and obfuscate data. This way they can maintain status que and corruption.

Yes the public is to blame because they allow their gov't to behave this way.

[sgresident]

I cannot imagine 20,000 in taxes! the house must be quite expensive. I agree with chet, find a more affordable home in a desirable community.

[gardener34]

Yeah - that must be a heckuva house. And the one rule in life, the taxes will ALWAYS go up too. Until you get that homestead exemption thing.

[MozartSt]

Yeah, but the taxes pay for good schools, and good schools means high property values when you go to sell. It's a catch-22. Low taxes usually correlates to bad schools and low property values.

The alternative is to find a nice suburb with a huge commercial tax base. Does anyone know what the taxes are in Oak Brook?? In this case, one would suspect that the taxes for residents would be low because of all the corporate development and the mall feeding the coffers. I know Northbrook is somewhat lower because it has a big commercial RE tax base.

[gardener34]

The Oak Brook multiplier is real low. Cause of the mall and the big corporate headquarters there - someone on here once posted the property tax multipliers of the different towns online somewhere.