Illinois Lawmakers Push Property Tax Hikes To Fund Affordable Housing (2025 Update)

Illinois is a corrupt sewer infected with crooked politicians. Chicago is ground zero.

Bullshit. The rates vary by Illinois county but the highest rate (Lake County, IL) is 2.17% of market value. Hardin County IL has the lowest rate of 0.71% of market value.

Even at 2.17% the time to reach full value is 46 years.

When has Home Guy ever had a fact correct?

Says someone who denies that clouds affect climate.

================================

"This year brought double-digit increases in recently reassessed areas such as Chicago's North Side, where the average bill rose 11.5 percent to more than $5,400 according to figures from Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough. In the north and northwest suburbs, homeowners now pay an average of $7,400, and bills in some towns are far higher."

====================

Joe Cahill On Business

July 23, 2019 03:45 PM

Defuse the property tax bomb

Politicians can't afford to ignore growing public resentment of excessive property taxes, a powder keg that needs only a spark to explode into a full-fledged tax revolt with unpredictable consequences.

Across Cook County, many homeowners this month will finish paying their largest single annual expense.

I'm not talking about mortgage payments, college tuition or the bill for a costly surgical procedure. Residential property taxes now consume a larger share of income than any of those expenses in a growing number of households.

As they write checks for the second installment of 2018 property taxes, due Aug. 1, homeowners confront an unsettling but undeniable reality. For many, property taxes have gone from a steep but acceptable cost of homeownership to an unsustainable financial burden.

Longtime homeowners have seen property tax bills double, triple, even quadruple over the past couple of decades. Illinois has the highest property tax burden of any state except New Jersey, according to an analysis by WalletHub. This year brought double-digit increases in recently reassessed areas such as Chicago's North Side, where the average bill rose 11.5 percent to more than $5,400, according to figures from Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough. In the north and northwest suburbs, homeowners now pay an average of $7,400, and bills in some towns are far higher.

Numbers like that put a big dent in family budgets, leaving significantly less money for other spending, college tuition accounts and retirement savings. At the same time, astronomical property taxes put homeownership out of reach for more people and limit the amount others can afford to pay for a house, slowing home sales and depressing property values.

Something has to give, and there are signs it's starting to. As my colleague Dennis Rodkin reported recently, realtors increasingly point to property taxes as a factor in steadily declining home sales across metropolitan Chicago. Sales volume in the nine-county region plunged

The implications are clear: property taxes now threaten to snuff out growth in a major sector of Illinois' economy. The NAR estimates residential real estate generated $139.2 billion in economic activity in Illinois last year, or 16 percent of gross state product.

When housing sales stall, ripple effects spread far beyond homeowners who see the value of a major investment-often their biggest investment-stagnate or decline. Real estate agents lose business, as do mortgage brokers and moving companies. Appliance dealers and furniture retailers move less merchandise. New home construction slows, reducing opportunities for carpenters, plumbers and electricians. It adds up to a major economic drag-the last thing growth-challenged Illinois needs.

For a glimpse of what's to come for much of metropolitan Chicago, look to west suburban Oak Park, where property tax bills often exceed $10,000 and can range far higher. Home sales in Oak Park fell 22 percent in the first half of 2019, median selling prices dropped nearly 12 percent and houses sat on the market almost 40 percent longer than they did in the first six months of 2018. As Rodkin reported, Oak Park realtors blame sky-high property taxes for sending buyers elsewhere.

They can run, but they can't hide from rising property taxes. Homeowners across the region are unwilling passengers on an escalator to Oak Park-level property taxes. Newly elected Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi is reassessing properties with a view toward eliminating historical inequities that favored wealthier areas, a necessary corrective but one that will lift bills for many homeowners with limited resources to absorb tax hikes. In Chicago, new Mayor Lori Lightfoot needs to raise $1 billion for pensions. And the elimination of federal tax deductions for local property taxes means homeowners will feel the full force of any increases.

The story is much the same, if not worse, for businesses, especially in Cook County, where commercial property is taxed on a higher percentage of assessed value than residences. As Crain's Alby Gallun reported, early indications suggest Kaegi's reassessments will hit business hard. There's nothing like a big increase in an onerous property tax bill to get a company owner thinking about moving out of state.

Yet political leaders show no eagerness to address the root causes of a looming economic crisis-which include Illinois' over-reliance on property taxes to fund schools, and the smorgasbord of local taxing bodies sustained by the levies. Gov. J.B. Pritzker talked about property tax relief during his campaign. But since taking office he's done nothing more than commission a task force to study the issue, as part of a deal to win support from suburban legislators for his proposed graduated income tax.

Elected officials sometimes use legislative task forces to bury issues they'd rather not deal with. But Pritzker and other Springfield bosses would be well-advised to act on any recommendations this one comes up with. Illinois can't afford to let property taxes weigh down its economy. And politicians can't afford to ignore growing public resentment of excessive property taxes, a powder keg that needs only a spark to explode into a full-fledged tax revolt with unpredictable consequences. Sooner or later, some opportunist will light the match. Anybody hoping to defuse the bomb had better find a way to reduce property tax bills.

I think you're confused. I've never claimed that.

Yes, I'm in NJ which has very high property tax rates and even here, it would take ~50 years of property taxes to equal the value of a home. This kind of gross nonsense sticks out, but obviously not to HG, who loves to find things and spread them unchecked, regardless of how dubious the sources are.

It might not be hard for 5 years of taxes (about how long it actually takes to complete the tax sale process from the last time you paid) to equal your equity in a house. That is particularly true in a soft market. I know my neighbor stopped paying anything on her house and moved out. It sat empty for almost that long just waiting for the tax auction. That was what kicked off the foreclosure process although in a better market the mortgage company would have foreclosed earlier and ate the taxes themselves.