CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

I'm sure the average Joe living in suburban Chicagoland isn't going to miss much moving to suburban Texas if they don't care about walkable neighborhoods and want lower taxes.

perhaps, perhaps not.

i've got plenty of "average Joe" cousins spread across suburban chicagoland.

i imagine they stay in chicagoland for two main reasons: family and inertia.

[the urban politician]

Chicago will increasingly rely on people like me to pay the bills. Landlords who simply raise the rent.

It’s a better than angry homeowners who keep seeing their property tax bills go up.

[left of center]

^ Easier for them to have a middle man take the heat, instead of angry homeowners with pitchforks at the doors of the statehouse.

I have a 3 flat in suburban Lyons, and typically pay roughly $10,500 a year in property taxes (yes, the burbs are much worse tax wise than the city). Imagine my surprise when I got a letter from Mr. Berrios informing me of the great news that my property has nearly doubled in value! Estimated tax burden increased to $14,500/yr. Lucky me!

Had to pay a tax lawyer $1,200 to get the assessed value back down to where it was with the same tax bill.

F-ing Ridiculous.

[the urban politician]

^ Ouch! Fuckface Berrios raised your property tax by 40%?

Wow, glad you got that knocked down. Of course, you also made the property tax appeal racket some money, but.....

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

All of these factors explain why the city is booming and the suburbs are kinda wavering.

I was in the doctors lounge the other day and two older Indian doctors were talking. They were both lamenting how they had bought their pricy homes in the north burbs 20 years ago, and both had lost value. They were talking about high property taxes, Madigan, and how disappointing it all was.

One commented how, when he came here 30 years ago, Chicago was such a “great city” but that now he has some regrets. His kids are in Boston and Seattle.

I didn’t like to hear this, and I’m sure you guys are rolling your eyes at some of those comments. But we can’t change the fact that a lot of suburban people feel this way. There is a visceral gut punch when your home loses value in 20 years. Period.

I know that not everybody experienced this, but I think the suburban market was probably a bit too frothy in the 90s/early 2000s when Chicagoland was on a major high. We just haven’t recovered. And now the bills are due—roof repairs, new kitchens, new siding, electric outlets, etc etc. Its gotta really suck for some people.

And the high property taxes are the second gut punch. They are up a lot—even though home values are not. Today’s Crains just reported that Chicagoland property taxes are higher than in over 95% of the nation. This is real.

Homeownership makes less sense in this region unless you buy a smaller home. It’s better to own a 2 flat and draw rent to help pay the mortgage. We need more multi family, I think. But for sure, Madigan and the State really screwed things up with the property tax scam.

I would LOVE to see the hard evidence of Crains report on property taxes in Chicagoland vs. the rest of the nation. Unless suburban property taxes in the Chicago area are FAR higher than in Chicago itself, I can think of a good number of regions with considerably higher taxes as a percentage of actual home value than Chicago. I can also think of a good number of regions of higher property taxes in actual dollar amounts. Has Crains looked into Dallas, Houston and Austin, just as a for-instance? The entire Bos-Wash corridor?

Besides, while part of me sympathizes with homeowners with big property tax bills, part of me, at least as a renter, doesn't. Mainly because property taxes are a major deduction when it comes to paying income taxes, while renters get hosed bigly.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[left of center]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Ouch! Fuckface Berrios raised your property tax by 40%?

Wow, glad you got that knocked down. Of course, you also made the property tax appeal racket some money, but.....

Yeah, believe me I'm not a fan of funding the decadent lifestyle of property tax attorneys any more than you are, but sadly not like I have much of a choice. Either I get hosed on 4k or 1.2k.

The joys of being an entrepreneur in Illinois...

[left of center]

Originally Posted by glowrock

Unless suburban property taxes in the Chicago area are FAR higher than in Chicago itself)

You hit the nail right on the head. Illinois has more government entities than any other state, a fact thats surprising considering states like Texas and California are 2 to 3x our population. All that costs a lot of money, paid by the relatively small populations of all the tiny little municipalities that surround Chicago. Cook County could save millions if they forced the cities and villages within county proper to amalgamatewith each other, or be annexed by Chicago.

Btw, the article TUP was mentioning can be found here: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...ent-of-biggest

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by The North One

Yes but you are an exception and you own multiple properties so you're really the upper middle class. I'm sure the average Joe living in suburban Chicagoland isn't going to miss much moving to suburban Texas if they don't care about walkable neighborhoods and want lower taxes.

I'm STILL trying to figure out this whole low taxes thing with Texas! Gentlemen, let me be very, very clear about this. While Texas has no income tax, the PROPERTY TAXES, as a whole, are very, very high! And not to discount the insanity of the pension crisis, both in Illinois as a whole and in Chicago as a city, but if you really think Texas and its large cities are really much better, you'd be sadly mistaken. The unfunded liabilities in Texas are estimated at over $100 billion, minimum. Houston itself has billions in unfunded pension liabilities, as I'm sure does Dallas, probably San Antonio and Austin as well.

Also, I hate to say it, but the pension liabilities, for the most part, are going to get wiped out at some point. Retirees, both current and future, are going to have their benefits forcefully chopped, and rightfully so. Not to sound cruel, but tough crap! While I do agree that police, fire and EMT workers really should be entitled to generous benefits due to the inherent danger of their jobs, the "average" government employee shouldn't have such cadillac/jaguar/rolls royce benefits. It was untenable decades ago and even more so today.

Let me repeat myself here: I'm NOT discounting the issues with Illinois or with Chicago. I AM discrediting the supposed financial advantages of moving to Texas and other such places.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by left of center

You hit the nail right on the head. Illinois has more government entities than any other state, a fact thats surprising considering states like Texas and California are 2 to 3x our population. All that costs a lot of money, paid by the relatively small populations of all the tiny little municipalities that surround Chicago. Cook County could save millions if they forced the cities and villages within county proper to amalgamatewith each other, or be annexed by Chicago.

Btw, the article TUP was mentioning can be found here: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...ent-of-biggest

This is Pennsylvania's major issue as well, left of center. I heard and read it all the time when I lived in Pittsburgh. Absolute insanity how many government entities exist in such small areas!

Aaron (Glowrock)

[the urban politician]

It's great to hear your perspective on this, Glowrock

[IrishIllini]

If Illinois really has 650 pension plans I'm going to cry.

[Vlajos]

Does the average Cook county property tax payer really pay over 2% of value? I have never paid more than 1.4% in Chicago.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

It's great to hear your perspective on this, Glowrock

Thanks, tup. I didn't mean to take over the discussion here, I was simply trying to dispel the notion of Texas somehow being some low-tax panacea like so many people in the Midwest seem to think it is. As a recent Houstonian transplant to the city, I felt I needed to interject what I know about the real situation in Texas.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[sukwoo]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Does the average Cook county property tax payer really pay over 2% of value? I have never paid more than 1.4% in Chicago.

Wouldn't surprise me. In Oak Park its not uncommon to pay 3 or 4% of value. In the south suburbs, with their declining home values, its even higher.

[left of center]

^ My mother pays 3.5% of assessed value in property taxes in the near west suburbs. My condo in West Town is at 1.9%. The suburbs are much more expensive in this regard.

[bnk]

I don't know if this is accurate but





http://www.dispatch.com/business/201...e-crowned-soon


Amazon’s second headquarters winner likely to be crowned soon

...

Amazon executives likely will wrap up visits to all 20 cities this week or next, and could make a decision on where to locate HQ2 as soon as this month, said K.C. Conway, chief economist for the commercial real-estate group CCIM Institute, and director of research at the Alabama Center for Real Estate at the University of Alabama.

“The decision is very close at hand,” he said. “If not April, it will not be beyond May.”

Aaron Renn, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, an urban-affairs think tank in New York, also believes a decision is close.



“They’re moving right along in terms of those site visits,” he said. “I don’t know what more they could want.”

[left of center]

Interesting. I guess there wont be another round of whittling down the list of cities as potentially thought. At this point all the hype is starting to get stale, so I suppose it would make sense for Amazon not to drag the selection process any further along.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Does the average Cook county property tax payer really pay over 2% of value? I have never paid more than 1.4% in Chicago.

We pay 1.9% for our condo in Lincoln square.

We pay 2.0% for our condo downtown.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by left of center

Interesting. I guess there wont be another round of whittling down the list of cities as potentially thought. At this point all the hype is starting to get stale, so I suppose it would make sense for Amazon not to drag the selection process any further along.

Makes sense - there's a lot less articles now about HQ2 than before. Announcing it soon will kick it back into gear. All the cities that lost can write articles about how they suck (If Chicago doesn't win, you know this is what Crains will do) and the city that wins will talk about how great it is in tons of articles.

[the urban politician]

All of the discussion has gotten stale because everyone know it's D.C. Bezos just wanted to get as good a deal as possible.