Your Low-Tax Dream House
Table of Contents
Introduction: Low Taxes and Affordability
Section One: Getting More for Less Money
- Taking Control: A Low-Tax Strategy
You can reduce all costs of owning a dream house to a percentage
of the going rate. This will require a few months of effort, but
the long-term savings can add up to hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
- Tax Assessments: Deciphering the Smoke and Mirrors
By understanding how houses are assessed, you can make the system
work for you, rather than against you.
- Location, and How to Avoid It
Yes, there are still some real estate bargains. The best
location for your dream house may be temporarily disguised as a
"pink trailer."
- Timing and Scheduling
The amount of money you spend is heavily influenced by when you
spend it. Through shrewd timing, you can save thousands of
dollars in mortgage payments and property taxes.
- House Design: Keeping it Simple
An affordable house begins with an affordable design. Extra
corners and angles add more to your tax burden than they add to
the resale value of your house.
- Exteriors: Paying Taxes to Please Tourists
Extra flourishes and symbols of luxury on the outside will have a
disproportionate effect on your tax burden.
- Interiors: The Moveability Rule
Three out of four tax assessors agree: by observing this rule,
you can add classy features to your house without raising your
tax burden.
- The Wet Rooms: Kitchens and Baths
How to build a piggy room, and other ways to avoid losing money
down the drain in kitchens and baths.
- Cheap Heating, Cheap Cooling
Expensive central systems were a prerequisite for comfort in
drafty old houses. Today, you can get more efficient heating and
cooling at less cost, and at a lower tax assessment, without
sacrificing comfort or convenience.
- Unfinished Space: Low-Cost Luxury
Unfinished space is cheap to build and has a low tax assessment.
By making good use of it, you can have a better house, with fewer
square feet of expensive finished space.
- Sweat Investments
Sweat may be the most valuable investment you ever make. You can
reduce the price of your dream house by tens of thousands of
dollars, even if you've never lifted a hammer or saw.
- Manufactured Housing
Frozen dinners will save you money, if the only alternative is to
hire a cook. Likewise, manufactured housing will save you money,
if the only alternative is to hire a general contractor.
- Remodeling
Fixing up a run-down house can be far less expensive than
building from scratch. A low-tax remodeling strategy makes good
use of what is already there, and avoids tripping the levers that
can raise assessments.
- Case Study One: Building from Scratch
This is the story of a large, attractive, dream house built on a
ten-acre lot with lake frontage. The total cost was about the
same as the price of a new trailer on an average lot.
- Case Study Two: Remodeling
This is the story of a house that was bought at an unusually
affordable price, but needed a lot of work. With a low-tax
strategy, it was converted into an outstanding, and affordable,
place to live.
- Home Businesses, Burial Plots, and Other Unique Tax
Issues
Farms, home offices, fallout shelters, hogsheads for storage of
tobacco leaves, facilities for raising bi-valve mollusks, and any
other unique features of your dream house should be taken into
account when you develop a low-tax strategy.
Section Two: Residential Propery Tax
Summaries
Introduction to Section Two
How to use the information listed for your state, and how to
obtain further information on assessment of properties in your
community.
Property Tax Summaries for Residents of....(list state by
state)
Glossary
Index