Looking to save a little cash? Here’s a suggestion you won’t hear every day: Move to Hawaii.
The state with a notoriously high cost of living unexpectedly offers you the best deal on property taxes, according to a recent analysis from WalletHub.
As part of the analysis, WalletHub ranked every U.S. state and the District of Columbia by their real-estate property tax rates, which the website based on the median real-estate tax payment and median home price for each state.
The 10 states with the lowest real-estate property tax burdens are:
- Hawaii: 0.27% effective real-estate tax rate
- Alabama: 0.42%
- Colorado: 0.53%
- Louisiana: 0.53%
- District of Columbia: 0.55%
- Delaware: 0.56%
- South Carolina: 0.57%
- West Virginia: 0.59%
- Wyoming: 0.61%
- Arkansas: 0.63%
The state with the highest rate is New Jersey (2.47%), followed by Illinois (2.3%) and New Hampshire (2.2%).
As WalletHub points out, property taxes actually impact us all, homeowners and renters alike:
“And though property taxes might appear to be a non-issue for the 36 percent of renter households, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We all pay property taxes, whether directly or indirectly, as they impact the rent we pay as well as the finances of state and local governments.”
How to trim your property tax bill
Nobody likes paying property taxes, but being told to pony up for more than is justified is even worse.
Sometimes, a homeowner can have the sneaking suspicion that taxing authorities have appraised a property value beyond the home’s true worth. If you appeal this verdict, you could get your local board of assessment to change its mind and lower your tax costs.
Sound impossible? Not according to Money Talks News founder Stacy Johnson, who has successfully appealed his property taxes in two states. To learn how to halt — or lower — your tax rates, check out “Can I Freeze My Property Taxes?”
If property taxes are crushing you and you are of a certain age, you might be able to put off the day of reckoning. For more, check out “12 States Where Older Homeowners Can Defer Property Taxes.”
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