Property taxes for all homeowners in the U.S. rose between 2021 and 2023, but varied widely in different regions of the country.
Median property taxes lurched upwards by an average of 10.4% to an annual payment of $2,969, or $247 a month, putting additional burden on property owners, according to a LendingTree analysis.Though taxes rose across the board, the increases ranged widely across the 50 largest metros ranging from $1,091 to $9,937 annually, the financial services platform said in its report.
While LendingTree did not include data from 2024, a similar analysis by another vendor found that last year homeowners
"There are already so many factors stacked up against homeowners today," said Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, commenting on the property tax increases.
"The fact that property taxes have risen so quickly just makes a challenging situation that much more difficult," he added in a statement. "That extra money that has to go to pay taxes is money that can't go toward dealing with high grocery prices, building an emergency fund, growing your retirement savings or other financial goals."
Homeowners in Tampa, Florida (23.3%), Indianapolis (19.8%) and Dallas (19%) saw the steepest property tax increases in the nation over the three-year period. In contrast, Pittsburgh (4.4%), Philadelphia (8.2%) and Milwaukee (8.3%) recorded the smallest increases.
Some Southern metro areas had the lowest overall median property taxes, according to LendingTree's analysis. Among the 50 largest metro areas, residents of Birmingham, Alabama, paid the lowest median property tax at $1,091 annually. Homeowners in Memphis, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky, followed with average annual payments of $1,856 and $1,912, respectively.
Unsurprisingly, residents in metro areas such as New York ($9,937), San Jose, California ($9,554), and San Francisco ($8,156) pay the highest property taxes in the nation.
Among the 10 metro areas with the highest property taxes, four are in California — San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego — and two are in Texas: Austin and Dallas.
"Those states are known for their relatively high tax rates and housing prices," Schulz said. "As a homeowner in Austin, I can tell you I'm not surprised to find my metro near the top. As Austin has boomed in recent years, many people have moved here from California and other places because of relatively low housing prices, only to be unpleasantly surprised by the size of their yearly property tax bill. It's a big deal."
On a state-by-state level legislation cropped up to neutralize the spike in property taxes. Two states, Florida and Georgia,
Critics of the idea have pointed out that the state's lawmakers would have to
