New Jersey is nicknamed the Garden State, but according to a new data study it could also be dubbed the Property Tax State.
WalletHub published its 2024 ranking of the states with the highest and lowest property taxes, with New Jersey leading the nation with a 2.33% effective real estate tax rate. New Jersey’s median home value is $401,400, which makes the annual taxes on homes prices at state median value at $9,345.
Joining New Jersey among the states with the highest property taxes are Illinois, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa.
At the other end of the spectrum, the state with the lowest property taxes is Hawaii, with a 0.27% effective real estate tax rate –which is 8.7 times lower than the rate in New Jersey. Hawaii’s median home value is $764,800, which makes the annual taxes on homes prices at state media value at $2,054.
WalletHub also noted that if one examined the nation on a political spectrum, Blue States have 29.17% higher real-estate property taxes averaging $3,208, compared with the Red States that average $2,483.
“Some states charge no property taxes at all, while others charge an arm and a leg,” said Cassandra Happe, a WalletHub analyst. “Americans who are considering moving and want to maximize the amount of money they take home should take into account property tax rates, in addition to other financial factors like the overall cost of living, when deciding on a city.”
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Yes, all the costs matter. I’ve known people who moved out of California to Oregon, only to move back to California after finding out that other taxes made the cost of living higher (though not Oregon home prices in most areas).
Many leave a state hoping to find a better standard of living, which many do.
But others find that their new state lacks what they loved about their old state, regardless of tax issues. I’ve found many states have wonderful traits, all their own. However, I do love the western states, simply for the variety of scenery.
Highly populated states tend to have higher taxes because costs go up in heavily populated areas and any future development requires working around existing development or developing in less desirable areas because the “easy places to develop” are already developed.
The tax costs in various states also vary due to weather (floods, droughts), geologic factors (earthquakes), topography (high hills and mountainous areas cost more to build roads or developments), and also extreme events (wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes), and economic conditions (tax base potential for the state).
Also consider that “extreme events” are also impacting more people (and all our developments) for the simply reason that humans now “ARE” everywhere, in some fashion. Either in vast urban and suburban areas, or in rural zones, or in agricultural or extraction zones. So, yes, at 340 million (U.S.), if the earth hiccups or burps, or, well, you know, the other end lets out gases, well, we are now intruding into every environment, and, yes, we (most humans) have now greatly increased the chances that some humans (or our stuff) will be impacted because we are in the path of every “natural” event.
And we also are driving climate warming (due to too way many humans plus our endless consumer impacts), and that just adds salt to our, often, self-inflicted wounds.
And yes, tax costs will go up because of all that, and even if we pay those taxes.
2024-12-21-WRN-Comment #2
“Blue States” is a misleading description, as most states are purple, with blue winning (at times in some districts and even statewided) but often by narrow margins.
“Red States” might be a bit less purple, but it depends upon the district and the state.
As people urbanize (or even suburbanize), the overall trend is towards a political middle ground, which is not to say that is good or bad, just an is.
When large numbers of people live in a given area, there is often more mixture of cultures and ideas and more exposure to why problems do need to be solved if we all want to live better, and that costs money, and, sometimes, only tax money can fund those larger solutions.
The Infrastructure bill has benefited Red States greatly, including with Green Energy funding, even if those states, overall, did not vote for the political party that pushed through the infrastructure bill (but the other party also supported that bill to a significant extent too).