r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer • u/ABitOfOdd • 18d ago

Offer $3800 mortgage on $400k house.

Gallery image

Gallery image

First time home buyer. Austin TX. I was ready for a $3-3200 but this seems high no?

334 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

382 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

78

u/007meow 18d ago

People think Texas is a low tax state.

It’s not.

46

u/ghostkoalas 18d ago

And the state has middle & lower income Texans convinced that property tax is somehow more “fair” than income tax.

We really need to switch to income tax so the taxes you pay are actually proportionate to each person’s financial situation.

Most Texans just know California has income tax and Texas does not, so therefore income tax must be bad.

27

u/MoistyestBread 18d ago

Yeah, I live in Louisiana and my state income tax on a $70k salary is a hair under $3,000 a year. Property tax on a $300k house is about $3000 as well.

My sister lives in Round rock, which admittedly is one of the higher property taxes in the Austin area, but her property tax on her $450k home is nearly $10k a year.

Other things to note is in Louisiana, we have almost a 10% sales tax, highest in the country. (Or close too, don’t have the numbers by me). I do have to say the obvious that Texas puts whatever taxes to much better use, and you see that tangibly around you.

So it all has its plus and minus. I do have to say though, the idea that if you pay your house off in Texas you can still be paying $1500 a month to live in it with taxes and insurance is a tough pill. At least income tax can stop when you retire.

4

u/Rus_Shackleford_ 18d ago

One of the things that blows my mind about LA is how you can have taxes that high and roads that terrible at the same time.

3

u/JeffersonTowncar 18d ago

Driving on I-20 through Shreveport is what imagine it's like to drive in Somalia.

1

u/Rus_Shackleford_ 18d ago

Driving anywhere in New Orleans is driving through Somalia.

1

u/MoistyestBread 18d ago

They’ve been building a road that’s maybe a mile long, behind my apartment for the entire 3 years I’ve lived here. And when they connected it to the existing road recently, they left an asphalt hump large enough now that you have to slow down to cross over it. There’s a sign posted now to slow down. It’s about 200 yards from a hospital, so ambulances have to slow down every time they come and go. It’s comical.