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Maplewood is a great example of homes that look amazing at first glance on real estate websites, but the high property taxes cause your mortgage payment to jump

by apohn 8y ago

Maplewood is a great example of homes that look amazing at first glance on real estate websites, but the high property taxes cause your mortgage payment to jump significantly. Here's a great example. 36 Ball Ter, Maplewood. $550K, ~2200 sqft, interior looks newly renovated, looks really nice in pictures. $15.5K(!!) in taxes. With 20% down you're still looking at $3.5K/Month(includes property taxes) on a 30 year mortgage. If you look at the price history on Zillow or Trulia, it looks like it was flipped (I think that's when the interior renovation was done) late 2017/early 2018, and the price went up to $750k and has plummeted since then. So the property tax assessment is probably on the pre-renovated value, not the renovated value. So whomever purchases this house can expect a fat tax increase when the town reassess the value. Also, look at the prices between the East and West side of Maplewood. The East side is fairly close to areas that lots of people would prefer not to live in due to safety concerns. Again, I'm not trying to be an ass or attack you. I'm just trying to present some real numbers so people have a realistic view when they think the greater NYC area is a place you can escape to when you want access to NYC with a medium CoL. NYC is a very high CoL area and moving to the suburbs can hurt (e.g. terrible commute) in unexpected ways, and you still have a high CoL compared to the majority of country.

zjaffee 8y ago
Oh for sure, NJ home prices do not tell the whole picture, but the truth is that even with these high taxes, a Software Engineer at a top company should easily be able to afford to live there, even with a spouse that doesn't work. 3.5k a month is affordable to people who make 130k+ a year, which is less than a new grad makes at Google, where this is absolutely cheaper than anything within a comparable commute to google offices in the bay area at all, or around Seattle in school districts of similar quality. New York Metro is in no way cheap, and I was never trying to make that argument, just that it can be substantially cheaper than the existing major tech hubs.

by apohn 8y ago

zjaffee 8y ago

Oh for sure, NJ home prices do not tell the whole picture, but the truth is that even with these high taxes, a Software Engineer at a top company should easily be able to afford to live there, even with a spouse that doesn't work. 3.5k a month is affordable to people who make 130k+ a year, which is less than a new grad makes at Google, where this is absolutely cheaper than anything within a comparable commute to google offices in the bay area at all, or around Seattle in school districts of similar quality. New York Metro is in no way cheap, and I was never trying to make that argument, just that it can be substantially cheaper than the existing major tech hubs.