From the Daily Record:
NJ property taxes soar higher
The average property tax bill in New Jersey topped $6,300 last year, a 7 percent increase in what were already the nation’s highest property taxes, according to new state figures.
Even as Gov. Jon S. Corzine and legislators spent five months looking for ways to cut property taxes, the average bill rose from $5,914 in 2005 to $6,331 in 2006, according to numbers compiled by the state Department of Community Affairs.
The 7 percent increase last year was a bit less than in 2005, when property taxes — used to fund most county, municipal and school operations in the state — increased 7.3 percent.
The average Garden State property tax bill has increased from $4,961 in 2002, according to the DCA figures.
In all, $20.9 billion in property taxes was collected in 2006 in New Jersey, where property taxes are twice the national average.
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The governor’s budget proposal also includes a $2.3 billion plan to cut property taxes by 20 percent for most homeowners. As the centerpiece of last year’s reform effort, it would provide a 20 percent cut to homeowners who earn up to $100,000; a 15 percent cut for homeowners who earn up to $150,000; and a 10 percent cut for homeowners who earn up to $250,000.
The plan, which Corzine has not yet signed into law, would provide an average $1,051 tax cut for homeowners.
Renters would also see tax help increased, with some getting more than four times as much property tax relief as they got last year.
From Marketwatch:
New-home sales plunged 16.6% to 937,000 in January
Sales of new homes plunged 16.6% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 937,000, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. It was the lowest sales pace in four years, and was the biggest percentage decline in 13 years. Sales are down 20.1% compared with January 2006. The decline in sales was much sharper than expected. The inventory of unsold homes dipped to 536,000 from 537,000, representing a 6.8-month supply at the January sales pace, the most since a 7.2-month supply in October. The median price of a new home was down 2.1% year-over-year at $239,800.
From Bloomberg:
U.S. January New-Home Sales Plunge 16.6%, Most Since 1994
New-home sales in the U.S. fell last month by the most in 13 years, pointing to more weakness in the real-estate market that limited economic growth last year.
The 16.6 percent decrease to an annual rate of 937,000 in January, less than any economist had forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, Commerce Department figures showed today. The pace of sales was the slowest since February 2003. A measure of housing inventory rose to the highest in three months.
The figures show home construction will remain a drag on the economy even with lower borrowing costs and more incentives from builders. More cuts in home prices may be needed to stir buyer interest as builders keep reporting increased rates of canceled orders.
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The January decrease in sales was the largest since a 23.8 percent plunge in January 1994. Economists forecast new home sales would fall 3.6 percent to a 1.08 million rate, from a previously reported 1.12 million for December, according to the median of 69 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from a 1 million pace to 1.16 million.
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The median price of a new home fell 2.1 percent in January, to $239,800 from $244,900 a year earlier. A report yesterday from S&P/Case-Shiller showed U.S. home prices rose 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 compared with the same three months a year earlier, the smallest gain since the second quarter of 1993.
Today’s report showed the number of homes for sale at the end of the month fell to 536,000, from 537,000 in December. That left the supply of homes at the current sales rate at 6.8 months’ worth, the highest since October, compared with 5.7 months.
From the Philly Inquirer:
Population trend is state’s loss
New Jersey’s economy is slow-growing, but it continues to generate extraordinarily high incomes. In 2005, New Jersey had the highest median household income among the 50 states.
If New Jersey were a country, it would be the wealthiest on earth, followed by Luxembourg.
Unfortunately, this rosy picture has a blemish: We also rank No. 1 in median housing costs.
While our median income is 27 percent higher than the national median, our housing costs are 52 percent higher. So much of our income advantage is needed to cover our higher housing costs, and we really aren’t as well off as the income statistics suggest.
Unaffordable housing and other high costs of living are driving people out of the state in alarming numbers.
Our population is growing slowly - and we are facing potential population losses - because of what the Census Bureau calls “net internal out-migration.”
Simply put, more people are moving from New Jersey to other parts of the country than are moving into the state from the rest of the country. And the exodus is accelerating.
In 2002, 23,704 more people moved from New Jersey to other states than moved into it from other states. The loss grew to 33,225 in 2003, 45,045 in 2004, 56,989 in 2005, and 72,547 last year. At this rate, the state will have a net internal-migration loss of more than 100,000 people by 2009.
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The factors contributing to this, in addition to housing affordability, are high taxes of all types, the loss of high-paying science and technology jobs, and weak overall job growth - even as competitor states, such as North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, offer more economic opportunities.
Population losses, in turn, impact labor supply. Jobs cannot be created without skilled people to fill them and affordable homes for people to live in.
There are no easy prescriptions for these demographic trends.
Crafting simultaneous and interrelated policies to address housing affordability, protect our high quality of life and the environment, and improve the cost-competitiveness of our economy are key to making tomorrow’s New Jersey attractive enough for people to stay here and for our business community to invest here.
From Newsday:
Renters to get more tax relief in Corzine budget plan
Some New Jersey renters will get more than four times as much property tax relief as they got last year under Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s proposed budget.
Details released Tuesday show renters who earn less than $20,000 per year will get $350 in property tax relief from the state, up from $75 last year.
The increase is part of a property tax plan approved by the Legislature. The plan would provide a 20 percent property tax cut for most homeowners and lesser relief to others. Corzine and lawmakers have said the plan would also increase tax rebate checks sent to renters, but the specific details weren’t available until Tuesday.
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Under Corzine’s budget plan, renters who earn up to $20,000 would get $350, up to $35,000 would get $300, up to $50,000 would get $200 and up to $100,000 would get $80.
Senior citizen renters who earn up to $70,000 would get $860, up from $825 last year. Senior citizens who earn up to $100,000 would get $160.
In all, about 800,000 tenants would get help.
From Bloomberg:
Risk Returns, Not Just to the Subprime Market: Caroline Baum
Problems in the subprime loan market have been front-page news for weeks, with a total of 27 mortgage lenders going belly up since December, according to The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, a Web site that tracks cases of sudden death syndrome among lenders. (The figure includes subsidiaries of lenders as well.)
For a while, rising delinquency rates, plunging share prices and increased risk perceptions about securitized loans were confined to the subprime market. In other words, it was a niche sector of the loan market (borrowers with a checkered credit history) affecting a niche sector (housing) of the economy.
Gradually the notion that the bust part of the housing boom/bust cycle might not be quite so benign started to manifest itself elsewhere.
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The punishment meted out worldwide hardly fits the crime, but it does reflect a degree of nervousness about risk — a concept that has been pretty much off the table in recent years.
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It should come as no surprise that the distress is spreading beyond the subprime market to “Alt-A” loans, according to Andy Laperriere, managing director at the ISI Group in Washington.
“The risky characteristics of Alt-A loans are eerily similar to subprime loans and are likely to experience larger- than-expected losses,” Laperriere writes in a Feb. 26 report to clients.
Alt-A loans (alt is short for alternative) are made to borrowers with a prime credit rating who for some reason don’t want to provide full documentation on income or assets. (Alt-A loans are not to be confused with Alt-B, which are made to subprime borrowers who are willing to document their financials.)
Data from First AmericanLoanPerformance, a mortgage research firm in San Francisco, bear out Laperriere’s suspicions. The more recent Alt-A adjustable rate mortgages — those originated in the 12 months through December — are performing worse than loans of similar age in recent years. The 3.1 percent delinquency rate for the 12 months ended December is the worst since 2000, according to Mark Carrington, director of analytical sales and support at the company.
From CNN/Money:
Home price slump continues
Housing prices continued to fall in the latest reading on the battered real estate market released Tuesday from an industry trade group.
The median price of an existing home sold in January was down 3.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.
It marked the sixth straight month that prices have shown that year-over-year drop, a relatively rare condition for home prices before the current slide. Before the Realtor’s price readings showed a year-over-year drop for August sales, it had gone more than 11 years without that kind of drop.
The median price, the price at which half the homes sell for more and half sell for less, is now down 8.5 percent from the record high reached in July 2006. And the three biggest year-over-year declines on record have now been recorded in the last four months, with January’s decline just behind the 4.4 percent drop in October and a 3.4 percent fall in November.
From Marketwatch:
Home prices fall in fourth quarter
U.S. home prices fell 0.7% in the fourth quarter, the fastest rate since 1992, and are up just 0.4% in the past year, Standard & Poor’s reported Tuesday in the inaugural release of the national Case-Shiller price index.
A year ago, home prices were rising 14.6% year-over-year.
“Annual changes in home prices are either in decline, flat or yielding negative returns across all markets,” said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, which produces the index for S&P. “All metro areas are showing smaller annual returns than those reported for November.”
“Given the overhang of supply and clear signs of deceleration in home prices, we continue to expect a nationwide home price decline of about 3% in 2007,” Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a research note. They called the Case-Shiller index “probably the highest-quality measure of home prices.”
Home prices in the top 10 metro areas fell 0.8% in December, the largest monthly drop since 1991. Prices in the 10 cities are unchanged for the year.
Home prices in the 20 metro areas fell 0.7% in December, the largest decline in the seven year history of the index. Prices in the 20 cities are up 0.5% in the past year.
On an inflation-adjusted basis, national home prices are down 1.6% in the past year. Prices in the 10 cities are down 2% and prices in the 20 cities are down 1.5%.
Nominal prices in 18 of 20 cities fell in the fourth quarter compared with the third. Only Seattle and Portland managed gains. Nine of the 20 cities showed lower prices at the end of the year than at the beginning: Detroit, Boston, San Diego, Washington, Cleveland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver and New York.
Among the 20 cities, the biggest gains in the past year were in Seattle (up 12.1%), Portland (up 9.9%) and Charlotte (up 6.7%). The biggest losses in the past year were recorded in Detroit (down 5.9%), Boston (down 5.1%) and San Diego (down 4.2%.
From Bloomberg:
Existing-home sales rise 3% in January
Sales of existing U.S. homes rose 3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.46 million in January, the highest in seven months, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday.
It was the largest percentage gain in two years.
Sales were down 4.3% year-on-year.
Resales of single-family homes rose 3.5% to 5.69 million annualized, while condo resales fell 0.1% to 767,000 annualized.
The results were “surprisingly strong,” said David Lereah, chief economist for the real estate trade group. Lereah said he couldn’t be confident that the bottom had been reached, because unusually warm weather earlier helped to boost sales in January.
Inventories of unsold homes on the market rose 2.9% to 3.55 million, a 6.6-month supply.
The median sales price fell 3.1% year-over-year to $210,600. “The price correction is working,” Lereah said. Prices fell the most in the West, which had been the hottest region for price appreciation. Median prices are down 4.6% in the West, which could reflect slower sales in relatively high-priced California and faster sales in cheaper areas such as Utah, Idaho and New Mexico.
From the Detroit News:
Can’t sell, so owners give bank the homes
Alan and Alyson Wirgau live in a cute ranch on a quiet suburban street next to an award-winning school. There’s a new roof above their heads, a new deck in back and a For Sale By Owner sign in front.
Instead of weighing offers, the family is weighing an option that seemed unthinkable a year ago: If they don’t sell their home soon, they may turn down the heat, load their possessions in a U-Haul and drive away.
With a job in Indianapolis and dim prospects for selling their home, the Wirgaus are considering handing the keys back to the bank and walking away from their home.
They are among a growing number of Michigan families asking lenders to take their homes off their hands. That trend, paralleling a rapid rise in foreclosures, illustrates the desperation some families feel as home values fall below their mortgage debt.
That process, called a deed in lieu of foreclosure, is an agreement to give up all ownership rights in a home or piece of property to the lender.
It’s not a good option for anyone, but it’s often better than the alternative. Homeowners’ credit ratings are hurt, but not as much as in a foreclosure; the lenders lose money on homes now worth less than the outstanding loan, but lose less than the cost of a foreclosure proceeding.
There is no state or national data on deeds in lieu of foreclosure because it is an internal agreement between lenders and homeowners.
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Two years ago the Wirgau family’s 1,500-square-foot home was valued at $210,000. Today, it’s for sale at $180,000 — just enough to pay the mortgage and the closing costs.
No one has made an offer in the three months it’s been on the market. At the full asking price, “we’d just break even, and I’d bend down and kiss their (the buyers’) feet,” Alyson Wirgau said.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Housing Sector May Be Knocked By Mortgages
Investors looking to see whether trouble in risky mortgages will spill over into the broader housing market could find solace in today’s home-sales report.
But such complacency would come at a heavy price. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires estimate that today’s report will show that an annualized 6.24 million existing (that is, previously owned) homes were sold in January, up from December’s 6.22 million pace. Taken on its own, that would suggest that the housing market is holding its ground, allowing the glut of unsold homes on the market to get worked off in an orderly way.
Let’s put that number in some perspective. With lenders tightening standards on the subprime mortgages they offer to high-risk borrowers, home sales will have to take a hit, says Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton. He estimates that loose lending standards boosted home sales for the past three years by about 200,000 homes a year. If lenders ratchet their standards up to normal levels, those sales will go away, he says. That represents 3.1% of last year’s existing-home sales.
The total fallout could be even broader. When banks trip up by lending too freely, their usual reaction has been to overcompensate and put standards in place that are far more stringent than the banks otherwise would deem necessary. Having discovered that they took on far more risk than they thought they were, lenders need to go through a period of taking on less risk. Those subprime-mortgage lenders that have ceased operations won’t be taking on any more risk.
The good news is that despite the subprime shakeout, default and delinquency rates for prime mortgages remain low. The worry is that fresh declines in the housing market could spur lenders to be more cautious even with low-risk borrowers.
From the AP via the Asbury Park Press:
3-section tower for Jersey City
his design for a 52-story tower across the Hudson River from Manhattan, internationally acclaimed architect Rem Koolhaas wants to inspire social interaction, life and energy.
The building’s design — three rectangular sections stacked perpendicular to each other — allows for a mix of uses: condominiums, a hotel, artist lofts and studios, gallery and retail space.
“I am putting together familiar elements in an unfamiliar way,” Koolhaas said Monday in an interview after presenting renderings and models of the project at the Jersey City Museum.
The Dutch architect, winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architectural Prize, showcased his plans to transform the Jersey City skyline. He said he was conscious of creating the mix of uses to allow for people to interact, which he said is unusual in a high-rise building.
“We are creating something slightly more memorable and slightly more energetic,” he said.
The $400 million project, with public spaces on three levels of the structure, will anchor an arts district a few blocks from the water in a booming area. It will be among the tallest residential projects in New Jersey and will sit diagonally across the street from another high-rise building with a famous name, Trump Plaza: Jersey City.
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The parties settled last summer, allowing developers to move forward with plans for luxury housing as well as the cultural elements. The settlement required 117 affordable housing units and 120 less-expensive spaces for artists’ studios and lofts. Another condition included hiring a world-class architect, said Bill Matsikoudis, the city’s corporation counsel. Developers with the Athena Group of New York said about 300 condo units are expected to have a price range of $500,000 to $1 million.
From Bloomberg:
Housing Slump May Force Fed to Pare Annual U.S. Growth Estimate
The U.S. may be saddled with more sluggish growth than the Federal Reserve expects as the economy struggles to shake off a lingering hangover from the housing bubble.
“We’re in the midst of a classic boom-bust credit cycle in housing,” says Andy Laperriere, managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group in Washington. “And the bust is just beginning.”
The worst case: Distress already evident in the riskiest part of the mortgage-lending industry turns into a full-scale credit crunch that cripples the housing market and the economy.
More likely, say forecasters at ISI, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG, is an economy stuck at about a 2 percent growth rate in coming quarters, down from 3.4 percent in 2006, as housing demand remains in the doldrums.
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“The ultimate extent of the housing-market correction is difficult to forecast and may prove greater than we anticipate,” he said.
Hopes for an early revival took a knock on Feb. 16 with news that housing starts plunged 14.3 percent in January to an annual pace of 1.408 million. That was the lowest level since 1997 and well below economists’ forecasts of a 1.6 million rate. In response, St. Louis-based Macroeconomic Advisers LLC shaved its forecast of first-quarter growth to 2.8 percent from 3 percent.
“There’s a high probability that we’re going to get another tranche down in housing” as banks and other lenders make it harder for buyers to take out mortgages, says Ivy Zelman, housing analyst for Credit Suisse Group in Cleveland.
The financial fallout from the housing slump delivers a one- two punch to the industry and the economy.
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It increases supply as homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages can’t meet the higher loan payments and are forced out of their houses. Mortgage foreclosures monitored by Irvine, California-based research firm RealtyTrac jumped 19 percent in January.
The credit squeeze also depresses demand as prospective buyers find it more difficult to obtain loans. According to a Fed survey published on Feb. 5, more U.S. banks toughened lending requirements for home loans in the final three months of 2006 than in any quarter since the early 1990s.
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The financial stresses are most evident in the subprime mortgage market for the riskiest borrowers. The segment accounts for 13 percent of the $10 trillion in home loans outstanding, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.
Some 20 percent of the roughly $1.2 trillion in subprime loans made during the past two years will end in foreclosure, with owners losing their homes, says the Center for Responsible Lending in a study. The center, located in Durham, North Carolina, is a nonprofit organization financed by the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundations, among others.
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The strains, though, aren’t isolated in the subprime market. Delinquencies on adjustable-rate loans to prime borrowers rose to a three-year high of 3.1 percent in the third quarter of 2006 from 2.3 percent a year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Lenders are slated to reset as much as $1.5 trillion in ARMs this year.
“I would expect credit performance to slide in other sectors besides subprime,” says Richard Brown, chief economist at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in Washington.
What’s particularly troubling is that many borrowers are having problems making payments at a time when the job market is strong and the unemployment rate is near a six-year low, says Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics and professor of economics at New York University.
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“This a taste of what could happen,” says Joshua Rosner, managing director of research firm Graham Fisher & Co. and co- author with Drexel University Associate Professor Joseph Mason of a paper on mortgage-backed securities. “The housing market could take another leg down as the credit cycle turns.”
From the Philly Inquirer:
New Jersey’s Future
For years, developers have plowed under New Jersey’s orchards and farms to build office parks and suburban mansions. But if growth continues at its current pace, the Garden State will be built-out in 20 to 50 years - the first state in the nation to do so.
Little by little, builders are returning to the state’s cities, inner-ring suburbs and rural villages to try again. They’re gutting the old and replacing with new. In many places, they’re capitalizing on a national trend toward urban living, walk-to-work and transit communities.
New Jersey cannot continue to prosper or grow without vibrant redevelopment, such as that sprouting along NJTransit’s River Line in Burlington County.
But redevelopment isn’t easy.
To dissect the hurdles, more than 400 architects, planners, engineers, environmentalists, developers, and state and municipal officials gathered last week at a forum in Trenton sponsored by the smart-growth advocate New Jersey Future.
They debated the state laws, financing, design and community interaction necessary to bring back an old neighborhood - decidedly more complicated than bulldozing a green field.
One huge challenge is the state’s industrial past. Land is often laced with dangerous residue from previous owners. Cleanup isn’t always complete or clearly documented.
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Questions linger, too, about the appropriate level of site cleanup for residential reuse and how to ensure adequate warnings as ownership changes hands.
Stakeholders in forums like last week’s need to devise answers to those and other project stoppers. For economic and environmental reasons, the Corzine administration must put urban redevelopment atop its agenda, as long promised.
The state needs revitalized cities to reduce workers’ daily commutes - among the longest in the nation - which are causing businesses to locate elsewhere.
Cities and older towns are the best places to diversify housing, especially to create greatly needed multifamily and affordable homes. Redevelopment would also save open space elsewhere, thereby protecting water supply and reducing air pollution.
Redevelopment is the ultimate in reduce, reuse, recycle. It’s good for the economy, good for the planet.
From the Press of Atlantic City:
A big mess in the backyard
When Mario Schlenger looks out through the square glass panes in his kitchen doors, he sees a ghost town.
No one lives in the half-finished homes along Monet Drive behind his house. Brick houses sit empty with bare plywood for garage doors. Thin, frozen pools sprawl aimlessly through the sandy dirt of empty lots. An upside-down Magnavox television sits behind a garbage pile of crumbled cinder, baked bricks and plastic bags full of drink bottles.
“It was beautiful back here and then they came along,” Schlenger says. He grunts in disgust and turns his white-bearded face away from the doors and toward the floor before finishing. “And made a mess of it.”
“They destroyed it,” his wife Diane adds.
What was once woodlands has become wasteland at the Glen Eyre housing development, one of the most decayed projects in the region left abandoned by bankrupt builders Kara Homes. It could cost more than $25,000 just to clean up the trash at the site, which means the township cannot even act on the problem right now without putting the project out to bid, the township administrator said.
While Hamilton may have one of the worst sites, safety hazards, lost tax revenue and inconvenienced residents living in neighborhoods of empty homes have highlighted problems at nine other Kara developments in southeastern New Jersey. Lacey, Little Egg Harbor and Stafford townships in Ocean County and Galloway Township, Atlantic County, are also among 18 towns in the state where Kara abandoned construction sites after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October.
Those towns’ governments and residents can only wait as Kara receives bankruptcy protection while sorting through the lengthy reorganization process.
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What looms larger now is a half-million dollars in missing tax money for the township. Stafford, which usually has a near-perfect tax-collection rate, saw that rate drop by almost a half-percentage point last year because of Kara’s problems.
One Hamilton committeeman said Kara’s bankruptcy played a significant role in helping create a budget crunch in the township. While the township solicitor said it was only a small role, Perugini said the loss of tax dollars from Kara would be felt.
“This year we not only have the same expenses, we’re trying to do the same if not more with less revenue,” he said.
That money should come back to Stafford and Hamilton once the Kara properties are sold, a scenario both administrators consider a near certainty. Just last week the company began advertising an auction for smaller properties in Stafford and Little Egg Harbor townships, as well as developments in Toms River and Middlesex County.
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From the Record:
A tale of two housing markets
Two years ago, builder Meron Sason paid $1.5 million for a small Cape Cod on a wooded lot in Saddle River, tore down the home, and started to build a luxury stone-and-cedar house.
Now, with the new six-bedroom house on the market for $3.87 million, Sason has run smack up against the reality of a new housing market. Not only have sales slowed overall, but sales at the top of the market are slowest of all — and Sason is afraid he may not be able to sell the house at a profit.
“When we started, we thought we’d be able to sell for $4.5 million,” Sason said. “Then, the profit would have been OK.”
Many analysts say there are two real estate markets: the middle-class market, where sales are still chugging along, and the luxury market, where Sason and many other sellers are waiting — and waiting — for buyers.
“You do have kind of a bisected market,” said Karl Kern of Kern & Rogers in Wyckoff.
Signs of an imbalance between the supply of luxury housing and demand for it began appearing around the time of the 2001 recession, said Jeffrey Otteau, an East Brunswick real estate appraiser who analyzes the Garden State’s housing market. That recession followed the dot-com bust and a bear market on Wall Street; investors suddenly were unable to think about buying expensive houses.
Now, the supply of houses in North Jersey with an asking price of $2.5 million or more is so high that it would take about 2½ years, at the current sales pace, to sell them all, Otteau said. By contrast, the supply of houses selling for less than $600,000 ranges from about five to eight months, depending on the county.
“Sellers have to be keenly aware of what is a competitive price, and they have to get a little lucky to sell in this price range, because there are so few buyers,” said Kern.
The market for high-priced houses is always going to be smaller than the market for starter homes; after all, there are more middle-class people than rich people. But this trend may accelerate in future years, Otteau said. For one thing, New Jersey has been slow to create high-paying jobs over the last several years; many of the Garden State’s new jobs are in low-wage, low-skill industries such as restaurants. Waitresses can’t buy million-dollar homes.
And the glut of high-priced houses will increase over the next decade as baby boomers retire and unload their six-bedroom empty nests, Otteau said.
A letter to the Asbury Park Press:
Top wage earners pay a fair share
The writer of the Feb. 14 letter “Reform formula basically unfair” would like people earning more to pay more in taxes. Well, they already do. The top 10 percent of wage earners pay almost 80 percent of all taxes collected, according to recent studies reported in most newspapers.
Everyone should have their property taxes reduced equally. School taxes make up about 75 percent of my property tax bill yet I have no children in the school system. Should I be exempt from this portion of my tax bill? No, I have a social responsibility to help pay for the education of others’ children.
I am in the upper-middle income bracket and would be eligible for a smaller tax credit, if any, than my neighbor, yet we have homes of equal value. He has several children in the school system. And people like the writer want me to pay more because I make more.
My wife and I worked hard to get where we are today and did not move to Monmouth County until we could afford to live here. If it gets to the point where I can no longer afford the taxes here, I will move. That’s what a responsible adult would do, not look for others to pay more so he can live where he cannot afford to live. I can’t afford to live in Rumson or other expensive towns, but I don’t sit and whine that the people who can should pay more in taxes so I can have my taxes artificially lowered.
If you cannot afford the taxes, vote with your feet and move somewhere more tax-friendly than New Jersey.