Property Tax Comparison Calculator

This works out the annual and monthly property tax under two different rates and shows the gap. It is the calculation you want when you are choosing between two towns, or when a proposed levy is about to change your rate.

The formulas:

Annual Tax = (Home Value − Homestead Exemption) × Tax Rate

Monthly Tax = Annual Tax ÷ 12

What the variables mean:

• Home value is the assessed value, which in many states is a fraction of the market price. Check your assessment notice rather than what you think the house is worth.
• Tax rate as a percentage. If your bill quotes mills, divide by 10: 22 mills is 2.2%.
• Homestead exemption knocks a fixed amount off the taxable value for a primary residence. Florida takes $50,000 off, Texas $100,000 off the school portion. It is worth more to a cheap house than an expensive one, in percentage terms.

Effective property tax rates by state, meaning tax actually paid divided by home value:

California surprises people by sitting near 0.7%. Proposition 13 caps the rate at 1% plus voter-approved add-ons and limits assessment growth to 2% a year, so a long-held house can be assessed far below what it would sell for. The national average is around 1.1%, but the spread from Hawaii to New Jersey is nearly eightfold.

Practical example: a $400,000 assessment at 1.1% costs $4,400 a year, or $367 a month. The same house at 2.3% costs $9,200, or $767. The gap is $4,800 a year, and over thirty years of ownership that is $144,000, more than a third of the price of the house.

Three things that matter as much as the rate:

A low-tax state usually collects the money elsewhere. Texas has no income tax and some of the highest property tax in the country; that is not a coincidence. Compare the whole tax bill, not one line of it.

The rate is the visible half. The assessment is the other half, and it moves independently. A town that holds its rate flat while reassessing everything upward has raised your tax without a single vote being taken.

Property tax is not a fixed cost, unlike the mortgage payment sitting next to it in your escrow. It compounds with local budgets for as long as you own the house, and it does not stop when the mortgage is paid off.