Property Taxes Are on the Rise

Daily Real Estate News | Friday, September 25, 2015

Property tax collections have increased nearly $13 billion or by nearly 3 percent over the past year, according to a new analysis by the National Association of Home Builders.

Property tax collections – including commercial real property taxes and personal property taxes – totaled more than $503 billion over the last year. Property taxes are critical to communities' financials, making up 38.9 percent of state and local tax receipts.

"Gains for state and local non-property tax collections have outpaced increases in property tax receipts in recent years because such non-property taxes experienced the greatest declines during the recession," NAHB notes on its blog, Eye on Housing. "The impact pushed the property tax share of total receipts from the four major sources from a high of 44.9 percent in the third quarter of 2010 to just below 39 percent for the second quarter of 2015."

NAHB economists point out that the current share is close to the pre-housing boom (2001-2003) average of 38 percent.

Source: "Property Tax Collections Increase," National Association of Home Builders' Eye on Housing blog (Sept. 22, 2015)