Calif. Not Among States With Highest Property Tax Rate

CALIFORNIA — The property tax rate in California is fairly low when compared to the rest of the country. That’s according to a new report from the financial news and opinion site 24/7 Wall St., which reviewed the effective rate — meaning the total amount of property taxes paid each year as a percentage of the total value of all occupied homes — for every state. The data is from the 2015 fiscal year and came from the right-leaning Tax Foundation.

California’s effective property tax rate ranked 34th highest in the country, the report found, nestled between Montana and Nevada. On average, state and local governments across the country bring in about $1,500 a year in property taxes per person. Here are the numbers for California:

• Effective property tax rate: 0.76 percent
• Median home value: $509,400 (second highest)
• Per capita property taxes: $1,450.91 (21st highest)
• Median household income: $71,805 (eighth highest)

If those numbers seem like too much, you might consider moving to Hawaii, where the effective property tax rate was just .29 percent. If that sounds like a dream, consider this — the median Hawaiian home is worth more than $617,000 and the typical household earns about $77,000 a year, so don’t forget to bring a checkbook and perhaps buy a lottery ticket upon arrival. Alabama, Louisiana, West Virginia and Wyoming rounded out the five states with the lowest property tax rates.

On the flip side, residents in the Northeast appear to pay the highest rates, with New Jersey, New Hampshire and Vermont all appearing in the top five. New Jerseyans pay more than anyone else in the country with an effective property tax rate of 2.16 percent, the authors found. Residents pay more than $3,000 per capita and the median household income is just over $80,000 a year. A typical home in the state costs about $335,000.

Here are the 10 states with the highest effective property tax rates:

1. New Jersey
2. Illinois
3. New Hampshire
4. Wisconsin
5. Vermont
6. Texas
7. Nebraska
8. Connecticut
9. Ohio
10. Rhode Island

Property taxes are the single largest money-maker for local governments and they’re spent almost entirely on a local level. Generally they are used to fund fire, police, schools, roads, cleaning and repairs.

“As a result, the United States is a patchwork of property tax codes, and depending on where you live, property taxes can be either a trivial expense or a major financial burden,” the report said.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Maggie Avants/Patch