My glimmer of hope in today's economy
 

Last night I got a letter from my mortgage company. Turns out the value of my house has dropped by nearly 50%. The upside is my property taxes also dropped about 50%.

My mortgage is now $750 less a month.

Sweet!

As long as you plan to stay there for a while then, it's all good !!! :winkwink:

WOW 50% of the value of your house is insane man. Good tho that you're saying so much on your mortgage.

My Mortgage dropped $200 a month due to the interest rate decrease. I'm on a tracker so as the Bank of England drop interest rates, I save more money. The value of my house is holding strong so far tho, I think I've dropped about 5% at its peak. Its wether or not someone will buy it tho if I decide to sell.

Mortgage drop? What the hell is that?
Do you have to re-amortize to make that happen? Notary?

Why pay less on your mortgage anyway? I say pay more to get the principal down as fast as you can.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

If you don't plan on keeping the house for the lifetime of your mortgage then I don't see the point in keeping paying more money. Put the monthly savings into something else. That's just my 2 cents

The point is that a home/property is probably the best investment any regular person can ever have in their life. The return on it is likely better than any savings account will ever yield.

If your mortgage payment somehow drops 50%... keep paying what you were before, because now you're paying your principal off twice as fast.

My property taxes and homeowners insurance is all rolled into my mortgage. This way I pay one bill, not three, and it avoids getting huge bills every year when my property taxes are due.

My property taxes fluctuate depending on the value of my house. House value drops, so does my property taxes.

OK... but hold on... a drop in value of your home equates to a whopping $750 less per month just based on your property tax?

Where do you live? Malibu?

How much do you pay in property taxes in total?

Damn 50%!! Are you upside down in your mortgage now?

Wish you luck!

You know, I should be getting that annual appraisal letter too anytime soon, and yeah, there had better be a drop in my property taxes. Last years the fuckers RAISED IT! Claiming the value went UP. We all know that will be bullshit this year.

Cool thing about CA is your property tax won't RAISE from the price you bought the house at... it gets locked in. Wish that was the case where I'm at but fuck, at least there's no state income tax here. :1orglaugh

Am I upside down in my mortgage now? Yeah, to the tune of like $250k. Not the best situation, but I love my house and where I live so I plan on staying here a long time.

The funny thing is I can walk away from my house and buy the same exact house across the street for half of what I currently owe.

A property may be the best investment any "regular person" makes only because most people don't know jack about finances. Houses are bad investments, the return typically barely keeps with inflation. Of course that's better than a savings account, but if you can stick that money in a better investment or pay off more expensive debt you would be much better off.

And paying more into a house really only benefits you if you plan on staying more than five years.

Is that true? That's a pretty sweet deal.

FYI, county does not automatically re-assess your property value. Only time they are really required to do it is when a title changes hands or when the home owner pushes for it due to a drop in value. And, your property taxes can increase from the original value in California unfortunately. If your house has dropped, don't wait!! It only costs you money.

That's an interesting way of looking at it! Never buy property when they are at their peak. Always buy when the housing is at a downward slope.

I'm also confused, you're house might have dropped 50% in value but you still owe what you owe, so your property taxes and HO ins. were $1500/month?

That's good for your wallet. Things will turn around pretty soon again

Property taxes are $1400 a month. Clearly I don't live in a trailer park.

I'd like a few Canadian home owners to read the quote above and give their thoughts.

So you have to pay $16,800 per year on property tax alone? This is based on the value of your home? What percentage?

Yeah, I agree on it. Investment in a house is the best, paying it double if you can afford it. why not :thumbsup

50% ... wow ... I would be soo depressed right now. Even if I planned to keep the house for 40 years i'd still be depressed.

Yeah... well, unless you live in the states I guess!

I'd estimate it at 2% house was probably 900k and now its 450k.. :2 cents:

I wish our city/county updated property tax more often, I think they do it yearly or every two years. Fuckers.

I'm currently in the process of getting my homes re-accessed by the county Appraisers. I believe my taxes will be lowered, after they are done reviewing my case.

Wow is that open for debate. I would say it might be the worst investment many regular people will make.

Well I guess thats positive?

I bought my home on a foreclosure paid in full.
Now I come to learn that basically just by buying this house with the economic issues as of late I prolly lost 60K - 80K.

And I thought it was an investment.
At least I got some place to live though. COuld be worse.

Great, but aren't you just another conservative idiot who has spent the past 8 years telling everyone how great right wing economics work? For this you are clearly a failure; like all your peers, you do not have the ability to comprehend basic information, but you are happy to pretend that you do. This has now been proven to everyone on a global scale.

Someone would have to be a complete fucking moron to listen to anything you have to say about anything.

prop taxes are 1% in cali so that's tax on a $1.4 m home

socal is roughly 1% property taxes, so yeah no trailer park for Mr Rochard..
he should consider walking away from his house but before he does he should buy the one across the street for half the money.
banks in US dont pursue people abandoning their "investments".. merely give them a bad credit rating so it might be worthwhile..

i believe you can get it re-appraised by request, since prices mostly have gone up (minus the past 1.5 years) it is rarely done..

Not exactly, its kinda a minor task but can be done. Assessors came out no problem during the boom but now it seems they are hard to get ahold of!

However Property Tax is based on the purchase price of your home and generally it assumed to be locked at the rate you bought at, but there are ways to get it re-adjusted.



START HERE: http://www.reducepropertytaxesnow.com/

LOL. Start doing some math. Houses are not the amazing investment everyone thinks that they are.

i will never bitch about my $1200 a year property tax again.

cherry pimps must pay pretty good!

Geez that's quite a drop,that's great

wow saving 750/month is quite nice

Good for you.

It's this thinking linked to bankers/financiers who have little scruples so long as they earn that contributed to getting us into the mess we are in. Yes property should be a good investment and in most circumstances is.

But when the price of the investment is inflated to 100% more than it's real value then the investment starts to look less safe. You buy $1 for $2 and you repay $0.02 every month because the interest is $1.98 every month.

All works while everyone has a job and the economy flourishes. The bankers make a fortune and can earn their $20 billion bonuses and in 40 years people are paying 10% of what their neighbor pays to rent.

(OK the figures are to illustrate the point :winkwink:.)

Then the bosses of the banks decide it's time to move the call center to India because it's cheaper and they earn bigger bonuses. Then the guys who used to work in the call center based in Ohio don't have a job, can't pay their inflated mortgage and put the property on the market. Then the market declines and the Banks are left holding paper on $2 that's worth $1 and the dominoes start to fall.

Plug in higher fuel, food and living expenses, because the picture was all rosy and we could afford it. And you have the recipe for a disaster. But no worries the bankers still get their $20 billion bonuses and it needs the President to bitch slap them into not buying a French executive jet while Boeing lay off people.

We pay $10 a year property tax here, don't ask me why, and we own the house. So off to the Mall to buy some cheap Chinese manufactured goods. That will solve the problem according to the politicians. It would be a perfect solution if we could use borrowed money instead of earned money. :Oh crap

And yes I have a very weird view of things.

it itsn't, your own business is - much higher ROI, when people think house prices they think only about the last 8-10 years when the prices grew out of proportion, there are periods when the prices go down too just like it's happening now and my guess is it will contuinue this way in the net few years