He is probably referring to the fact that most people pay their property taxes out of escrow holdings along with their property insurance. Payment into the esc

He is probably referring to the fact that most people pay their property taxes out of escrow holdings along with their property insurance. Payment into the escrow account is part of your monthly bill and is rolled up into the "mortgage" payment even if it is not actually part of the mortgage. Most people won't even request these broken out by line. In those situations, you would expect your monthly payment to change year to year based on property tax assessment. Since it seems that many people can't differentiate between total tax rates and tax refunds, it seems reasonable to assume that people would consider their property tax escrow part of their mortgage payment.