Property Taxes Through the Roof

[Slide On The Ice]

Mortgage brokers and real estate agents, can you explain this to me? I'm baffled. I have an interest-only mortgage. Bad choice but at the time it seemed perfect because I planned to sell the place within 6-9 months. But then the values plummetted and I was stuck here. That's old news to some folks on this site, but I just wanted to say it before anyone pointed out how bad my loan is. But that's not my point, this is:

My monthly payments to my loan company include my mortgage, insurance, and taxes. I pay them, then they send the taxes to good ol' Lori Parrish. I know that this year the taxes had gone up, but I didn't expect to get hit with what nearly gave me a heart attack on Friday. My monthly payments have shot up by almost $500 a month!

I called my mortgage company Friday from work and asked them, WTF? My interest remained the same, but the escrow for taxes shot up. I could barely hear her explaination and I plan to call a manager there Monday morning to get to the bottom of what I hope is a big mistake on their part.

But this is what she said: Property taxes went up so I have to pay more (no shit, Shirley, I knew that taxes went up, but I hadn't expected to get hit so hard every month like that), and in addition I owed back taxes from last year, from them not increasing my charges when county taxes were raised. So all that added together requires me to pay almost $500 a month more, for the next 12 months.

I'm floored by this. Have other owners had their taxation rise so high so sharply? How can they expect people to be able to pay this much money to own homes who's values have gone down so far in the last year? The only hope to get out of this mess is to sell the place, but with values down so far, and taxes so high, who would be insane enough to buy a condo in Broward county now? ???

[swirlundergrounder]

You should have gotten a 5 year ARM instead of an interest only mortage if you wanted something short term at a lower rate.

That's what we did. We're not planning on staying in this house past 5 years.

A majority of people that bought into the market several years ago via 'interest only loans' are now screwed.

Slammin Shaun is the man to ask around here about this stuff..

Prices for houses have pretty much leveled off. Condo's on the other hand are financial suicide imo.

How can anyone expect Condo prices not to drop with the over development in this area.

Last year around this time, Miami Dade County said that there will be 79,000 new condo units in Dade county by the Spring of 2008.

Broward will probably have abiut the same amout of new units.

Where are you going to get 160,000 new buyers of condos who's avergae price is going to be around $250K for a 2/1 unit in this market?

[slamminshaun]

I'll end up typing 3 chapters about the subject. Just call me at 772-349-2202 and I'll tell you what happened and what to do from here.

[Slide On The Ice]

Originally Posted by Slammin'

I'll end up typing 3 chapters about the subject. Just call me at 772-349-2202 and I'll tell you what happened and what to do from here.

Will do. Thanks dude.

[Slide On The Ice]

Just got off the phone with Shaun. Thanks for everything, bro. I just hope you don't bill by the hour. ;D

[JMT]

my escrow went up about 100 bucks a month from the tax increase.

reminder to anyone who bought in the last year, you need to file for your homestead exemption by the end of the month.

[NewFoundLive]

Originally Posted by JMT

my escrow went up about 100 bucks a month from the tax increase.

reminder to anyone who bought in the last year, you need to file for your homestead exemption by the end of the month.

THANKS DUDE!!!! I was about to forget to do that for the 3rd year in a row...

[slamminshaun]

My mortgage was set to go up $850 per month, but I came up with a portion of my escrow shortage in cash, minimizing the blow to only $400 per month. Still, the property tax situation in Florida is absolutely ridiculous.....but as my buddy Coach said a few months back to me in another thread, "That's right, pony up!".

[coach]

I think we'll see some legislation relief on this soon. I'm not really sure what they can do, though, since the raise in property values is due mainly to Florida's increasing popularity. Shaun et al, what would be the conservative answer to this? See, I think it would be to leave the gov't out of this and for you guys to just suck it up and pony up. But you are seeming to indicate that would not be your choice.

[slamminshaun]

Originally Posted by coach

I think we'll see some legislation relief on this soon. I'm not really sure what they can do, though, since the raise in property values is due mainly to Florida's increasing popularity. Shaun et al, what would be the conservative answer to this? See, I think it would be to leave the gov't out of this and for you guys to just suck it up and pony up. But you are seeming to indicate that would not be your choice.

What do you mean leave the government out of this? Who do you think is confiscating all our money and ensuring the middle class never gets ahead??? Nope, not "big business", it's "big government" as always.

The tax situation is hard to fix now that things are so out of control. If I had been an eligible voter in the early 90s, I would have NEVER voted for Save Our Homes. Honestly, the only solution is to repeal that abomination of a law and spread the taxes out more fairly among the population, but mom, dad, nana, and grampa won't let that happen.

Why should I be penalized simply because I wasn't old enough to buy a house 10 years ago? Why should small business have to see their tax bills double every year simply because they can't homestead their commercial property? If this isn't corrected in the next few years, we're going to have a larger problem than just a few tax delinquencies.