That sounds great, but what about people like me who intend to move? Isn't it more the norm for people to move every seven years, or did I just misread that somewhere? If the breakeven point is 10 years, on average, everyone loses.
Proposed Super Homestead Exemption Information
- Thread starter Smiling JOe
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That sounds great, but what about people like me who intend to move? Isn't it more the norm for people to move every seven years, or did I just misread that somewhere? If the breakeven point is 10 years, on average, everyone loses.
If you move now you get a $25K exemption and then are locked in to a 3% growth. But if this passes and you move you would get a super exemption then not have a lock on growth. Keep in mind that revenues that the various taxing authorities can collect are statutorily limited. So a dropping of the millage rate would also be occurring if all of these values are skyrocketing.
That happens only in theory. Look back only a few years to the period from 2002-2005 and you will notice only a slight down-tick in the millage rate, but HUGE increases in assessed values, and the tax dollars increased greatly.
Do you have any idea as to why they are calling it Super Homestead Exemption rather than what it really is? I'm guessing it is so that the voters get tricked into thinking they are better off with it since it is "super," just like the super-sized fries and drink at McDonald's, but the only trick is that the Gov't gets more, not the majority of property owners.
It's true that if I vote "yes" and allow the Super Homestead, I can keep my SOH (which I voted for in the first place, thank God)....but at what cost to our communities and schools?
I know..."Sorry Charlie" Crist said he'd find the money to fund our school system. Hell, after seeing my Home Insurance double in the last year and the Pocket Change I saved on the Tax Rollback...I know his "promises" are pretty much a heap of crap.
Ole "Sorry Charlie" claimed he'd find the money to make up for the tax shortfall??? Hell--he couldn't find his arse with both hands, a map and a compass!
Believe me, I'm doing you a favor by keeping SOH. Just buy your home and file...that way when the next GIANT HOUSING BOOM hits Florida in the next few months (or so I'm told), you'll not be paying through the nose when the investulators send your property prices through the roof and the state comes looking for more money to fund "pet projects" such as million$ in cost overruns at the new airport.
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That sounds great, but what about people like me who intend to move? Isn't it more the norm for people to move every seven years, or did I just misread that somewhere? If the breakeven point is 10 years, on average, everyone loses.
And just where the hell do you think you are going SJ?
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I'm moving up near the new airport... NOT. Just some moving in the local area.It is not a theory. Revenues are limited by statute. So that must be taken into account. Revenues are limited to inflation plus new construction. This is going to force the millage rates down.
That boom will never happen again in our lifetime. The credit market pretty much created it and now they have been exposed.
I appreciate you wanting to help me.......but please.....let me be responsible for myself. I will keep SOH. But if this does not pass I will not be able to downsize because I will never be able to afford the taxes on a new home in this county. And if people, like me, never start moving again, then even a slight housing bubble is dead.
Why are you against choice? Let me be able to make mine. Just give me the freedom to do it.
TooFarTampa
SoWal Insider
This is a major problem. It is my opinion that if you live or own in unincorporated Walton County, for the most part you are in pretty good shape.
The metropolitan, incorporated areas have a completely different tax structure where millage rates are often more than double. People who have purchased in the past five years in, say, the cities of Tampa or St. Pete or other small cities nearby are routinely paying $8-10,000 in taxes on a $350-450,000 homesteaded home. Now six or seven years ago if you paid that much you would get something special. Not so much anymore, especially as the competition to get into top school districts has increased and what people could "afford" to pay got higher as the rates went down and lending standards all but disappeared.
I'm assuming Bob in Orlando has seen similar changes. In many cases it's not so much a "land grab" as, "let's chase after the best neighborhoods." Over time everything else went up too. My mom's average little 50s ranch in a very average, marginally desirable neighborhood is now valued at $250,000. Without her SOH cap she would be paying $5,000 a year! Instead it's just over $1,000. My husband and I considered purchasing his mom's house a few years ago to help her out financially. The tax ramifications of the changed ownership nixed that idea right away.
So SOH is clearly flawed. The people who have bought in the past several years have gotten screwed from a tax standpoint. Young families, downsizers and everyone who does not homestead is affected: landlords who have long rented our their single family homes, longtime snowbirds (who would have a hard time selling their places now that the taxes have shot up) and yes, investors, speculators, etc.
I think the problem during the boom was more a lack of collective wisdom in our federal government, in the lending industry and among city, county and state governments, who happily took all the new money and didn't care how this would affect people.
I would love for my taxes to go down, but I also knew going in exactly how much they were going to cost me. Now, I don't feel too terribly sorry for people who didn't make the same calculations I did. What I can't understand is why the "Super Homestead" once again requires individual homeowners to make a decision, rather than truly holding the governments accountable for all the money they raked in!
SOH is an absolute joke, and all we get out of this is a vote on a "Super Homestead fix", with no real emphasis on where the problems lie.
So I ask, SHELLY, if you like your comfy SOH cap, great, who can blame you? But why is it good for the state as a whole? What is the solution, aside from going back in time?
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Curtis
Beach Lover
You speak of the boat which I'm afloat. Even though property values are down significantly for 07 I am being accessed at the 06 values with no consideration to the current market.