05-30-2006, 07:51 PM
Quote:1) Property taxes are also one of those things that vary dramatically by location, here in California we pay a bill that's a little bigger than a monthly mortgage payment on a 30 year fixed with 20% down every 6 months, so you figure on paying ~14 mortgage payments a year when doing calcualtions of what you can afford. Other places have much lower or much higher property taxes. Lender will probably have this information, but that's something to consider when putting values into an online calculator.
Another thing to mention regarding property taxes is that if you are planning on having a house built as opposed to purchasing a pre-existing house the property tax for the lot will initially be the price of a vacant lot. it will probably remain that price for awhile and then will jump up after the lot gets registered as a house. A lot of people when building their first house don't know that the property tax jumps up so high after the first year which can cause problems with improper planning.