NYC Real Estate Taxes Skyrocketing!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/nyregion/01cap.html

If you don't like it, then move.

Here's the summary of increases: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/pdf/11pdf/ta_roll_summary_fy12.pdf

I agree. Our taxes are high and our services are low. Ignore Socialist since he lives in NJ. At some point the R.E taxes are going to hurt the property's value. Every responsible co-op should appeal the tax calculations annually. (Just another cost to include in the maintenance- legal cost). It is amazing how Bloomberg requested a third term while giving in to the unions with raises and pensions that the city can not afford without losing its tax paying base. (base is defined as 99% precentile of income of NYC population)

Socialist, strong, strong possibility. I'll let you pay all the taxes! Oh I forgot, Socialists only like to feed at the trough, unfortunately for you all the slop has been eaten. LOL

the sooner free market supporters leave, the sooner we can build a Socialist utopia. Single pay health care... ahh that's my dream come true!

And who will PAY for this utopia?

Wow, socialist. You really are totally consistent in your views.

Personally, I like single-payer & connections to jump the queue & a few bucks to shell out for that private MRI or cat scan.

nyc10023, that's France! And yeah, I agree.

we will raise taxes to the rates under Nixon.

Instead of trying to change things for everyone else, why don't you move to an already existing Socialist utopia?

like where? what state?

like where? Exactly.

Vermont is plannig to go single payer. In a few years, Vermont will be an excellent place to live since the voters threw out most of the Republicans there last November. And Vermont only has a 5.7% unemployment rate.

Alaska is also a good Socialist utopia where they literally pay you to live there. But the weather is way too cold for me.

how else will Ronald earn his "meager" union salary as a car repairman?

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Dunne, Ronald C $283,619 Car Repairman 2008

Read the NYT piece - Senate passed a bill to cap property taxes in NYS.

how will Michale feed his kids on a poor salary listed rate of "$62,976"...

..which ballooned to $274,963 in 2008 when you add in overtime..

without pensions/benefits/bonuses accounted for

poor union workers, they need more.

Taxes are like the weather...and you see how much the moaning & groaning has helped on that account. Like the weather - get used to it or move.

Hawaii

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Brooks, Donald L Car Repairman $62,976

YTDPay $229,949 2008

$62k "salary" taking home 3X more that amount..

YTDPay $229,949 2008

and one wonders why there are delays all over the system..

strong incentive for union overtime $$$

shame on you. WHy do you hate Donald's wife and kids so much? They need to eat.

My NJ taxes have risen depsite Christie's cap. It's a con game. DOn't buy it. They always put in loopholes so taxes can rise more than the 2%.

'shame on you. WHy do you hate Donald's wife and kids so much? They need to eat.'

agreed, white truffles every other day sounds fair.

"Real Estate taxes on my co-op have risen 75% between 2003 and 2010. That's an average of more than 10% per year."

Isn't that more than rent?

There goes the "keeping costs constant" argument for bulls.

'If you don't like it, then move'

Sorry, but that's bulldroppings.
You can bitch your ass off on RE taxes. This city (wrt RE taxes) has driven off the reservation and never looked back. I would love to see a city under an austerity plan until we get it together. What kind of chunk is waste? What part is stolen or 'gamed' from the city and state? We don't even have to consider NY pensions and city/state worker retirement age. We will soon be at a day where the masses will rise up and shout from their roof tops..."No MAS, NO MAS"!

Needless to say we will be run down by government supporters on camel back sporting whips.

Was that Donald at the Plaza with the Hooker (excuse me, adult entertainment engineer) last month?

No, that was Charlie Sheen who is jealous of Donald's deal.

Socialist: you will like Canada a great deal. Not only that, you will be just middle-of-the-road there in terms of political leanings.

It seems you have a choice. So where would you like to move? The following are top 10 tax friendliest cities in the U.S.

1. Anchorage, Alaska: Anchorage has the lowest tax burden at 4.1 %. The estimated property tax is $2,872 and the auto tax is $176 in this city that is home to 42 % of Alaskan residents.

2. Cheyenne, Wyoming: This second most low-tax city enjoys a tax bite of 4.3 %. The property tax and auto tax estimates are $1,047 and $564 respectively.

3. Jacksonville, Florida: The city has a low tax burden of 4.6 % while the property tax and auto tax estimates are $1,869 and $333 respectively.

4. Las Vegas, Nevada: The fourth tax friendliest city in the list, Las Vegas has a tax bite of 5.4 %. The property tax and auto tax estimates are $2,416 and $610 respectively.

5. Honolulu, Hawaii: Honolulu has a total tax burden of 5.6 %. The city's property tax and auto tax estimates are $1,279 and $425 respectively.

6. Memphis, Tennessee: At sixth position is Memphis with an overall tax bite of 6.1 %. Its property tax estimate is $2,084 while the auto tax estimate is $355.

7. Sioux Falls, South Dakota: With a tax bite of 6.3 %, and respective property tax and auto tax estimates at $2,701 and $325, Sioux Falls occupies the seventh position among the top 10.

8. Fargo, North Dakota: At number eight is Fargo with a tax burden of 6.3 %. Its property tax estimate is at $2,188 and auto tax estimate at $317.

9. Houston, Texas: Houston has a tax bite of 6.3 %. The city's property tax and auto tax estimates are at $2,778 and $310 respectively.

10. Billings, Montana: Rounding out the top 10 tax friendliest cites is Billings with a tax bite of 6.7 %. The property tax and auto tax estimates are at $1,983 and $682 respectively.

So we're angry that the top handful of MTA employees earn half the average compensation of a Goldman Sachs employee? Huh?

You can rule out Vegas. Unemployment is close to 15% there.

DOes this property tax cap apply to manhattan and coops/condos? Also, i still dont get how property taxes are going up at such an accelerated rate while price (ie market value) is going down....i hear that the rate is going up but when applied to a decelerating market value...shouldnt be going up that much....

lol chelapt

chelapt you don't understand how the taxes work in NYC. taxes are backwards looking. not today looking. so you can have declining values but increased current valuations. what I am wondering here is whether or not this cap applies to absolute tax amounts, or the increase that can be assessed after a valuation is changed.

so your apt was previously assessed at $800k, and now a million. does that mean your increase is capped at 2% of what you were paying with the $800k valuation, or 2% above what had been charged last year for an apartment valued at $1m?

ar, I'm pretty sure that the "assessed value" has nothing to do with market value - it's a very weird thing. Assessed values are much lower. As for the increase, I assume they mean the tax rate can't increase more than 2% or whatever inflation is if it's under 2%.

There are enough levers in the real estate tax system, with its farcicle appeal process, that the city can do just about whatever it wants to generate revenue at its whim. Slap yourself if you had any thoughts about fairness.

Assessed value is a percentage of market value (diff. depending on class of property), so yes, market value does matter. But "taxable" assessed value is capped (again diff. depending on class property) if there is no significant improvement and/o or change of property Cert of Occupancy. So assessed value (and market value) is important because it serves as the maximum that "taxable" assessed value can be.

So, say your property's market value is 5m last year, and is now at 4.5m. Say, assessed value is 200k, and is now 180k (because your market value went down). But taxable assessed value was 150k, it can still go up to 155k. Now taxes are a fixed % of that 155k. What AR is asking is whether the 2% tax cap is applied on whatever the taxes were or can the taxable assessed value go up to 155k (but the 2% tax cap is applied on the previous percentage of taxable assessed value).

Socialist: "You can rule out Vegas. Unemployment is close to 15% there."

All the baby boomers can take their money and purchasing power, and retire to Vegas! They're not too concerned about the unemployment statistics.

This is why.

Pension costs will amount to about 12 percent of New York City’s $67.5 billion budget for the year beginning July 1, according to the spending plan. Annual costs, now about $7.5 billion, are expected to increase to about $9 billion by 2016, from $1.4 billion in 2002, the mayor has said.

Arent the taxes based on the prior 5 yr average? So, for 2011...wouldnt it be the average between 2005 and 2010? So, basically we are still reeling from 2005 thru 2008(high valuations) and wont really see tax declines until 2014 when the taxes are based on 2008 thru 2013 where property values were down....true?

Rule out only Vegas? With the exception of Honolulu (and possibly Memphis for the music), those towns are shitholes where no self-respecting person would want to live. (Plus, I gotta believe other state taxes have to be factored in.) Give me NYC and its crushing tax burden anyday over living in Houston or Fargo. Also, not one of those places has a Mediterranean climate.

The increase in taxable valuation is capped quite stringently. As a result, most NYC RE owners have not yet begun paying taxes on the enormous increases in real estate prices caused by the bubble. Prices tripled during the bubble. Under current law, taxable valuation will need many more years to catch up. The OP is whining basically because s/he got a massive tax break during the bubble which is now being taken away, quite slowly.

Underfunded city public schools and MTA capital budgets have virtually nothing to do with taxes going up for RE owners. They are going up because the RE bubble made RE owners richer and RE taxes are wealth based.

>The increase in taxable valuation is capped quite stringently.

And soon they'll revert to the mean, right?

>With the exception of Honolulu (and possibly Memphis for the music), those towns are shitholes where no self-respecting person would want to live.

?

nyc10023, yes, that's right. I meant that the actual market value of your specific property doesn't matter - they use a handful of comps to estimate the market value, I believe. I phrased it poorly, sorry about that.

from my understanding...they use rental buildings as comps....and last 5 yr average so we are still feeling the effects of higher pricing from boom years.....

"So we're angry that the top handful of MTA employees earn half the average compensation of a Goldman Sachs employee? Huh?"

imagine if every person in the private sector had this sentiment...

nurse, who happens to be tending to your mother at life support..."i won't help her until i get paid at least half a GS employee's salary."

unless your mom passed in 2010 avoiding estate tax.. in which case, l'chaiiiim

Yes, it is a sliding 5 year scale to ease movement in either direction. So owners are paying taxes on the value increase. However, you can bet that once we have all 5 years starting with the first decline year, the rate will go up(or formula for taxable assessed value will be tweaked higher) to offset the value decrease.

hol4 : I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. You seem to be angry that a tiny handful of MTA employees earn a lot of money. And while it is a lot of money, it's not more than they could make in any number of other professions. So what's the point of your outrage? It's entirely unclear how nurses got involved in the conversation. Do you think they should earn more, or less, or was that whole thing just a non-sequiter?

"nurse, who happens to be tending to your mother at life support..."i won't help her until i get paid at least half a GS employee's salary."

Why would a nurse want a pay cut? In your next rant against govt. workers, please use facts.

"The increase in taxable valuation is capped quite stringently. As a result, most NYC RE owners have not yet begun paying taxes on the enormous increases in real estate prices caused by the bubble. Prices tripled during the bubble. Under current law, taxable valuation will need many more years to catch up. The OP is whining basically because s/he got a massive tax break during the bubble which is now being taken away, quite slowly. "

Good points... more reason RE may just sit there for years.

Stop

Stop

Stop

Fail to understand why people are buying properties with more than $2 per sq feet in maintenance & taxes. For a nice 1500 sq ft 2 bedroom, you are paying $3k per month and it is still increasing. Many new condo coversions of the last 5-10 years are at $2 in maintenance and taxes (650 sixth avenue, 655 sixth avenue, Altair for example) but they are still selling at higher prices than 2005-2006 when the maintenance and taxes were lower.

There are a lot of times I take a look at a listing, like the place, then look at the maintenance and say.... hell, that's almost paying rent.

agreed--my rent is just not that much higher than monthlies would be for a good comp apt

"For a nice 1500 sq ft 2 bedroom"

Most Manhattan 2 bedrooms are well under 1500 sqft, more like 900 to 1200 sqft. So the maintenance for 2 bedroom coops generally run in the $2,000 range, up or down 10%. Same apartments rent for over $4,000.

Just because a listing says 1500 sqft, doesn't mean it is!

RENY, I agree but the point of my post was that your maintenance is already half your rent, how do you cover mortgage? Should the ever increasing maintenance and taxed bring the prices down.

In other words, unions legally took away a part of your property so that they can retire early at goosed up pensions. They should try working hard like people at wall street without job security and pensions!!! Come on you socialists. I know you do not like what I am saying as you believe in entitlement to other's money - be in form of free healthcare, free education or fat pensions.

"They should try working hard like people at wall street"

That is one of the most hilarious lines I've ever read. You're really holding up Wall Street as an example of people who work hard to earn their money? The industry with probably the highest pay rate per hour in the world? This must be an effort at self-parody.

You mean wall-street bankers do not work 70 hours a week? Do they get the fat pensions at 55? Public workers unions have been stealing our property and children's future. Wall street only made bad loans - more money to the poor, suffered and repaid the government money with profit.

Without taxed paid by wall street bonuses, city and state would have been bankrupt long time back. How about the socialists writing a thank you note to wall-street rather than being self-righteous and feeding on wall-street taxes?

Wow, the self-pity is mind-boggling.

Guess what, medical residents work 80+ hours per week. They make like $50K. Fruit pickers often work 80 hours a week in season--there was a big fight in California to give them overtime when they worked more than 60 hours per week. They earn about $8.00 an hour.

But yeah, the poor, hard-working bankers. How do they get by?

P.S. Guess how many hours per week you have to work to earn $200K as an MTA repair man?

You are missing the main point. Real estate taxes are increasing due to the unions. Wall-street is only helping to keep the taxes down by paying more than their fair share. Doctors can work till the time they are seventy without much risk of being fired. That is why they make less money.

"Wall-street is only helping to keep the taxes down by paying more than their fair share."

By what definition of "fair share", especially since we're talking real estate taxes here? Do real estate taxes unfairly penalize bankers somehow?

"Doctors can work till the time they are seventy without much risk of being fired. That is why they make less money."

You are seriously arguing that the difference between $50K and $500K (or $5 million) is that one job has more job security than the other? Here's a banking question, then: assuming being a doctor is a no-risk proposition, what sort of additional risk would you normally associate with an opportunity that paid 10x the risk free alternative? Do you really think that banking is that much riskier than doctoring?

Also, do you think that fruit picking job has an awesome pension and guaranteed job security?

The average Wall St. bonus is larger than what most union workers will see in their pensions over their lifetime.

"Wall street only made bad loans - more money to the poor, suffered and repaid the government money with profit."

I'm still waiting for AIG to repay their loan.

But real estate taxes do not go towards paying wall-street bonuses (they come out of private pockets as all TARP money to 10 largest bonus paying wall street firms has been repaid with profits) - union pensions and healthcare benefits do. Bankers use the same services as every one else but pay much higher taxes. Did I ask that socialists send a thank you note to every banker?

bankers only pay 15% in federal taxes when everyonelse pays much more.

Bankers lost a huge portion of union pension funds that were invested in Wall St. Instead of sending them thank you notes, I would like to send them criminal indictments.

Bankers don't pay 15% in federal taxes.

You are 100% confusing bankers and their income with hedge fund managers, private equity firms and VCs and their carried interest.

>Bankers lost a huge portion of union pension funds that were invested in Wall St. Instead of sending them thank you notes, I would like to send them criminal indictments.

Maybe instead you should send criminal indictments to the pension fund managers hired by the union bosses, who weren't as wise as you? with their investment decisions.

>"Wall street only made bad loans - more money to the poor, suffered and repaid the government money with profit."
>I'm still waiting for AIG to repay their loan.

The government will be made whole on AIG, Citi, and the other firms. This is a red herring.

>The average Wall St. bonus is larger than what most union workers will see in their pensions over their lifetime.

Anyone who has an issue with a union worker who works for a private employer has no case.

The issue is the union workers working for the taxpayer and the abuses and the excess costs that are now unaffordable.

The pension fund managers hired by the union bosses work on Wall St. They don't have their own fund managers. One such manager was Steve Ratner, who was recently fined by NY.

N.J. pension fund spent $166M on Wall Street fees, commissions in last fiscal year

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/nj_pension_fund_spends_166m_on.html

Wall St. invested union pension funds in credit default swaps and MBSs and lsot big time. Punish Wall St. Seize their assets to make up for the losses.

>The pension fund managers hired by the union bosses work on Wall St. They don't have their own fund managers.

But why is that? Why doesn't the union have its own fund manager? Surely one of the union members ought to know how to invest millions and billions, right?

"Bankers use the same services as every one else but pay much higher taxes."

You keep saying this, but without any data or analysis. In what way do bankers pay higher real estate taxes than anyone else?

300_mercer:
Real Estate taxes are fully deductible on your Federal income taxes, additionally any mortgage interest is fully deductible. Based on your tax bracket that can substantially decrease your annual layout, the major advantage of owning and not renting. Also, most co-ops have a blanket mortgage on the building and that interest it also deductible by each shareholder based on the number of shares they own.

"But why is that? Why doesn't the union have its own fund manager?"

Because the fund manager is Thomas DiNapoli. He, and only he, decides where the $100 billion pension fund goes. He has absolute control over it, not the unions.

Clarification
"Without taxes paid by wall street bonuses, city and state would have been bankrupt long time back. How about the socialists writing a thank you note to wall-street rather than being self-righteous and feeding on wall-street taxes?"
when I say taxes it includes citi and state income tax which goes towards the revenue. Wall-street pays a very high percentage of this tax. Without this tax there will not be any money to pay unions and real estate taxes will be even higher. Wall-Street Bonuses = Good to keep the real estate taxes low. Generous pension benefits to municipal employees = Bad for real estate taxes

>Because the fund manager is Thomas DiNapoli. He, and only he, decides where the $100 billion pension fund goes. He has absolute control over it, not the unions.

Sounds like a pretty pathetic and weak union leadership. Not to have control over their own money. Pathetic.

Listen, Wall Street is the union's best friend. They pay big taxes. Plus they build new office buildings or build out new space in existing office buildings ... all with union labor.

300_mercer: Hey, way to completely change your argument in mid-stream. But let's go with it.

You're saying all of us should be thankful that Wall Street folks are incredibly overpaid and therefore they pay a bunch of taxes and keep real estate taxes lower than they would be, but not as low as they could be if only those pesky unions didn't keep demanding generous pensions?

Now, New York city and state taxes aren't particularly progressive, so doesn't your argument apply equally well to anyone not taking government-paid pensions? (i.e., doesn't it apply equally well to doctors or lawyers or any other "hard working" profession?) And if so, I'm still confused about why we're supposed to feel sorry for the finance folks who get paid more per hour than any of the other people we're talking about here, even after taxes.

No one is asking you to feel sorry. Very large dollar amount of taxes are paid by wall-street bonuses. If you make a case of less bonuses, more $ from tax revenue will disappear and real estate taxes will go up even more. Hence the socialists should send a thank you note to wall-streeters and pray that they get bigger bonuses.

Hey, or they could pray that more of the economy's growth made it to people actually contributing to that growth in the form of broad-based real wage growth... (And, like you've apparently conceded, if everyone in New York earned more money as opposed to just the bankers, the tax base would increase equally much. Hooray!)

How do you propose other people make more money? Bigger salaries to govt employees? The main point I am trying to make is non wall-street people in New York should be thankful that NYC has booming financial services industry paying big bonuses which contribute to significant portion of tax revenues. Otherwise we will be Detroit.

Other people could make more money by being paid more when they become more productive instead of having executive management and the financial industry siphon off all of the gains. This is pretty off-track, though. But your argument about rewarding hard working people would have been a lot more compelling had you chosen a different industry as your exemplar.