Quote:
Originally Posted by tom_567
Since you don't have kids, do be wary of places that are "growing like weeds". More growth means more kids means more schools means more bonds means more taxes! This happened in Washington Township. My parents moved us into a house with $2400 of property taxes that ended at $9000+ when they sold in 2010. The governor's cap will help sustain the increases, but bond payments are among the items that are exempt. Taxes may be higher in a more established town, but you may less increases over the long haul. Or you can do what NJGOAT did and have all of those industrial complex businesses pick up the tab in Logan. Good luck as you continue your search!
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This is spot on and is what is happening in Swedesboro, Woolwich, East Greenwich and to an extent in South Harrison. Those townships make up the "owning districts" of Kingsway Regional; Logan is just a sending district. As such, those townships have to pay taxes to the municipal, county, local school system and the regional school system. Kingsway just issued over $30 million in bonds to expand the school (owing to all the growth) and that cost landed right on the taxpayers in those towns (Logan was immune since we aren't technically part of that district). Additionally, Swedesboro/Woolwich share schools and Woolwich is growing very rapidly and that has led to overcrowding issues (East Greenwich is dealing with some of that as well) and they are now exploring building additional elementary schools which means more bonds.
What it all means is that taxes have nowhere to go but up in those towns. They are also in an odd bind in that they are too small to really attract much in the way of non-residential ratables and any they would attract require large scale infrastructure projects (sewer and gas line expansions as well as road work). Essentially they are in a position where the residents need to pay for all that growth now and pay in order to support future growth in the hope that some of that will offset their future tax base.
That's ultimately the Catch-22 with high growth areas. You have the opportunity in terms of housing cost to buy "on the ground floor", for instance if the area becomes "another Washington Twp." current owners stand to see their housing values increase substantially. On the other hand they will also be watching their property taxes go from reasonable to just as expensive as towns like Cherry Hill, Marlton and Washington Twp. Most people who are relocating to the area are doing it because houses cost less and property taxes are a bargain versus other areas while still having good schools and plenty of open space. The problem is if things keep growing the way they are, the area won't have any of the features that currently make it attractive outside of the schools.
We picked to live in Logan out of all the towns in the area because Logan has a very stable population base. What new developments they are building are large homes and are not high density (the township also has enough affordable housing and is small enough to skirt the Mount Laurel provisions, so no low income housing needs to be built whenever they want to put up a new development. I won't wake up tomorrow and find that the woods behind my house are going to become Section 8 housing like some folks in Woolwich recently found out). The township has a huge ratable base so we "pay less and get more" then people in the other towns. Our local schools are just as good (some argue better) and are comfortably below capacity and there will be no need to expand them anytime in the foreseeable future (enrollment is actually dropping over the past few years). Finally, we are not a member district of Kingsway, just a sending district. That means at the high school level my kids get to go to the same great school as kids in Woolwich, East Greenwich, etc. but I don't need to pay the costs of expanding Kingsway to handle all the new kids. An added bonus is that Logan owns most of the local water rights, meaning the folks in Woolwich end up subsidizing my sewer and water bills. Down the line if Woolwich continues to grow, I'll still get the benefits of that growth in terms of housing values, but will be insulated from their worst effects. Yes, I carefully researched it before we moved there, lol.
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