On Friday, August 8, 2014 2:45:14 PM UTC-4, Danny D. wrote:
trader_4 wrote, on Fri, 08 Aug 2014 11:13:25 -0700:
Out of curiosity, what are the typical taxes on say a nice 3 bedroom 2
1/2 bath home, 3000 sq ft, on about an acre lot?
An acre? Most land out here in Silicon Valley is sold by the square foot,
not by the acre.
Well, funny thing that. I'm familiar with the heart of silicon valley,
been there many times. But while you were saying silicon valley, you also
were talking about 10,000 gallon water tanks, homes in the hills, etc, so
I thought you were probably a bit further out, where maybe there were some
bigger lots. In those earlier discussions I was having a hard time picturing
a 10,000 gallon tank on a hill in Santa Clara for example.
Here's a lookup for Saratoga, where I think Steve hails from:
http://www.coldwellbanker.com/real_e...ch/ca/Saratoga
Taxes are roughly between 1.5% and 2% of the price you paid for the
house, so, the MEDIAN property taxes in Saratoga would be 2% of
$1,340,000, which is about $27,000/year, which sounds about right
for where I live also.
Well, it does make NJ look better. Here the house I described would be
worth more like $600K and paying more like $11K in taxes. And I presume
the recent real estate debacle worked itself through there and prices
adjusted a bit.
Given the almost 10% income tax in California, with a median income of
$150K, that's another $15 in California property taxes. Add to that a
sales tax of almost 10% and you get a whoppingly high tax burden, which
when you add the marginal 36% Federal (but average is probably around 40%
), you get a tax burden that easily exceeds 60% to 70% of your income.
I guess your one of the folks that can add and thinks you're taxed too much. LOL That's what gets me. You have some folks running around talking about
a top Fed rate of 34% or 39%, pretending that it's not so much, like that's
all the taxes we pay. Or comparing it to Fed rates 50 years ago, when there
was no state income tax, sales tax, property taxes were very low, etc. Today
the combined effect is staggering.
Yet, they keep voting for higher, and higher, and higher taxes.
(I don't get it).
Part of the problem is that you have more and more people who are riding in
the wagon, instead of pulling it and they vote too. But still, I agree, I
don't get it either. I guess it's like cooking a frog. If you threw the frog
in the pot of hot water, they would jump out. But when you just keep inching
it up, little at a time, people take it. We're getting hosed here in NJ good
too, but clearly it's worse for you.
Back to your question, I'll look up the median property size (I'm not
sure how to find that information) but I'll also post the income and
property value cite from that site above:
"Saratoga, California is located in Santa Clara. Nearby cities and towns
include Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Loyola and Monte Sereno. Saratoga
is a suburban community with a population of 29,972. The median household
income in Saratoga is $145,807.
So a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house is $1.3mil, taxes on it are $27K, and the median
income is $145K. That still doesn't compute.
73% of residents are married and families
with children reside in 41% of Saratoga households. Half the population
of Saratoga commutes 26 minutes or more to work, with 83% of residents
holding white collar jobs and 17% residents holding blue collar jobs.
The median age of homes in Saratoga, CA is 35 years, with 82% of those
homes owned, 14% rented and 3% not occupied. In the previous year, 0
Saratoga properties were sold. The median sale price of a home in
Saratoga
in the previous year was $1,340,000."