“The median home value in McHenry County is $184,300,” according to the web site Zillow.
“McHenry County home values have gone up 3.1% over the past year and Zillow predicts they will rise 2.9% within the next year.
“The median rent price in McHenry County is $1,500, which is lower than the Chicago Metro median of $1,675.”
Here’s the data Zillow has extracted that shows an increase in the value of McHenry County homes since 2013:
Here are the average home prices in some McHenry County towns:
Keep rising so I can more bang for my buck when I move to SC.
Interesting.
Maybe the segments are different, but we recently had an appraisal (last week) and our home value DROPPED 2.8% since March 2015.
By the way, the house is in better condition – we’ve replaced the AC Unit, added new stainless appliances and more since the last appraisal.
I guess we should stop putting $s into a the money pit because we’ll never get the return – not looking for dollar for dollar improvement, no improvements do that.
Unfortunately, it appears a few comps in our area were sold to investment companies at well below the market value and now they’ve been repainted and offered as rentals.
Other houses in the neighborhood are for sale, but no one is really interested unless they can get something distressed.
I’m sure the tax assessment will continue to increase, regardless of the real market home value.
Still can’t fathom the logic of having tax assessments that are ~50% of our mortgage payment, but the wealth must be redistributed to those who need it more than the tax payer.
The comparison to Chicago is on housing not cost of living.
THe average wage in Lake and Cook is SIGNIFICANTLY higher.
Many HR professionals call it the McHenry County Discount
Woodstock is isolated as steeply dropping while others rising.
This can only be correlated to relentlessly higher taxes levied by D200 and City of Woodstock year after year despite plummeting home values.
Who is on the buy side of these foreclosure purchases for rental property?
at $1500/month=$18000 per year rental income, minus $6500 property tax (5% of $130,000 without homestead exemption),
there is an excellent return for property investors in busted out low-end residential real estate.
It is a superb business plan, if done intentionally (inflate public spending, causing property tax rates 100%-300% higher than anywhere in America, causing real estate prices to plummet.
Buy up foreclosed real estate at discount and appeal assessments.
Lower assessments cause even higher tax rates. Higher tax rates cause even lower property values. Buy up more real estate at deep discounts.
High amount of social services in community (due to high spending of public money) drives incentive for high home rental occupancy rates at Relatively high rents $1500/month).
Property values rising = property TAXES rising.
As the Great Exodus from the Land Of Lincoln continues …
Are Conflict statements ever demanded or scrutinized?
Even if conflict statements were obtained,
Conflict statements wouldn’t contain information about whether taxing body officials are purchasing real estate for rental investment properties.
And even if they are, it doesn’t appear to be illegal.
Just grossly, obscenely immoral.
There is academic literature examining the extent to which high property tax rates are capitalized into the property values.
Oates expands on Tiebout that government-provided services are capitalized as supportive of property values, but that property taxes in excess of perceived value exert a negative capitalization effect.
Woodstock in the past 4 years is an excellent, isolated, well defined example of an ‘island’ of property value destruction without any identifiable correlating factor other than aberrant high property tax rates.
Illinois is a nationwide leader in underwater mortgages.
So at 2.9%, they should be out of the soup, by say 2035.
Good news for all the Illinois banks, representing a whopping 10%, of the FDIC’s unofficial problem banks list.
Property taxes are an unfair measure to fund education.
Poorer school districts don’t get the same opportunities and richer districts are charging so much that people have to move. Also state and federal should pay their fair share for education.
There is not much difference in the median rent but in Cook county you have public transportation, more social aid programs for poor and seniors, highways and higher salaries. businesses in McHenry Count don’t usually pay much unless they are government organizations or you are a lawyer or a doctor or professional.
This makes McHenry County a poor choice for people to move to.
So what?
So Valley Hi Op Board should take notice that as this malignancy spreads outward from Woodstock (and McHenry? also Harvard?) within the county, the property value capitalization of high tax rates will apply.
The ‘dead’ communities will cease to be contributory taxpayers to overall County taxing bodies, and the ‘prosperous’ communities will be burdened with more County tax dollars to pay, and tax rates are more likely to rise.
This can trigger the next ‘failed municipality/state’ as hyper-local officials discover the great profits to be made in the “Woodstock Model” of property value destruction for vulture-rental-property-investor-profit.
(I’m getting to Valley Hi).
A newer academic study
http://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2013/CES-WP-13-04.pdf
suggests that property tax rates are FULLY CAPITALIZED into home values, when households lack school-aged children.
That means that higher tax rates mean commensurately lower home values.
Buyers/renters of foreclosed homes will NOT be seniors but investors renting (at relatively high rents) to households with children, who can recognize some benefit of government services (school) to offset the relentless downward pressure on home values.
Investors do not need to fix up rental homes, in fact investors have incentive to let property values fall further:
Rents go up no matter what, and lower assessments keep overhead (taxes) down.
This will start the cycle of lower property values in other McHenry County communities, as schools take more each year and failed-state communities (Woodstock, McHenry, Harvard) contribute less and less to the common funds (MCC, MCCD, McHenry County Government).
Attempts at isolating the failed communities are obvious (Woodstock’s inexplicable cordiality to tif districts, for example) but the common fund demands are great enough to tip ‘prosperous’ neighboring communities over the inflection point of property tax rate being “too high” relative to other communities, counties and States in America.
(I’m getting to Valley Hi)
So not just in Woodstock will SENIORS (I finally got to Valley Hi) be unable to afford the painful combination of hemorrhaging home equity value while annually paying higher dollar amounts in property taxes without any compensatory benefit(no children attending school), but as the rest of the County suffers similar fate, seniors will be forced to move by economic factors before they need nursing home residency.
The senior population in this county would be expected to drop as the capitalization of high property taxes into home values makes it impossible for seniors to afford to stay in local homes.
In that case, Valley Hi should NOT be expected to need expansion or surplus ($40 million) funds.
This is happening and will continue to happen, proof being that the people able to make it happen are making it happen, year after year.
That is proof enough that the situation is NOT painful to them personally.
The situation may or may not be beneficial to them personally.
We should not rationally expect anything to change.
In Chicago they are raising property taxes by the largest amount ever but they will still be lower than in McHenry county.
Rahm Emanuel is suggesting a progressive property tax which will not raise taxes on house less than $250,000.
This would cover most seniors and lower middle class homeowners.
If it passes in Chicago I think it should also be applied here.
Seniors have the most trouble keeping their houses because their incomes are lower and they still want to stay in their homes.
Republicans say the estate tax is bad because it takes homes and farms away from family members but tout reverse mortgages which are always advertised and people fail to see that if they outlive the reverse mortgage and cannot afford their property tax they will lose their house which is usually their only asset.
Seniors can defer their property taxes until death–an idea I brought to Illinois from Oregon.
Unlike in Oregon, the version that was passed here has income limits.
Contact the County Treasurer’s Office for details.
If more money for public schools is desired, shifting tax dollars from property tax rich to poor school districts is not the answer.
Reform pensions, retiree healthcare, fringe benefits, prevailing wage, collective bargaining, forced fees to unions as a condition of employment, etc.
Give taxpayers a true picture of finances including pensions and bonds.
The costs are too high and unsustainable.
We are spending plenty on public education, we need to reform the system.
Reforming the funding sources for public education before reforming spending and transparency will only hike taxes with little to no improved educational outcome.
And the biggest driver to hiked property taxes is public education.
Senior Citizen Real Estate Tax Deferral
Allows qualified Seniors to defer all or part of property tax on their owner-occupied residence.
It’s a form of loan with a six percent interest rate which is repaid after the tax payers death or at the time the property is sold.
You must be at least 65 years of age by June 1, with a household income not more than $55,000 and occupied the property for at least three years.
Application must be filed by March 1.
Which is least destructive to property values?
High property tax rates caused by:
A. High percentage of investor-owned rentals with higher than average percentage of household school aged?
B) High percentage of senior-owned properties paying NO tax but accruing tax debt at 6% interest until death?
C) High percentage of properties in tif districts and enterprise zones paying essentially no property tax for 36 years from inception?
I would choose B)
We should stimulate a local program of real estate sales promotions targeted at low income seniors, to purchase foreclosed properties and pay no property tax.
Wondertucky has higher home values than McH and Woodstock?
Really?
Cal does the hillbilly homes in WL worth more than the mountain homes in Cary too?