Viva la Reval. I was just looking today at several post-reval Hoboken Townhouses that have recently hit the market. For list prices between 2-3 million, taxes were between 30-45K. Their 2013 taxes were 11K-16K.

I took the kids on Saturday evening. 2 small cones = $8.50. There was, at most, a 1/4 cup of ice cream per cone, maybe. They looked like samples.

More expensive than Grom gelato? I was stunned when they rung me up.

Kids thought the ice cream was fine but they'd walk the few extra blocks for Torrico's.

Running a business is hard...

I'm not sure what's fair but we pay $10.5K for a 2b/2b 1000 sq. ft. built in 2005.

It's hard to know whether property taxes are either low or high in JC or even how they relate to NYC (setting aside the muni tax) since we haven't had a reval in 25 years and the prop tax base is outta whack (others can weigh in about abatements/PILOTS that's not my area).

I don't know anyone who thinks JC prop taxes are low, for sure, but many don't realize what a windfall they're getting when compared to owners in similarly sized and valued properties.

Talk to me about what a 2005 2b/2b condo 1000 sq ft in a no frill building costs in terms of property tax.

http://hoboken411.com/archives/93292

This was last thing I saw on it (January '14) and maybe an angry letter to the NJ.com. This one has a fun calculator.

I'm not sure I agree that compliance would equal their shuttering. Airbnb has gotten enough buy-in from happy users that perhaps they can disrupt the short-term/hotel rental space by coming to the policy table. They're doing just that in NY state and have stated they want it to be their model city. This isn't heroin purchased with Bitcoin (Note: that's fine with me too).

My condo by-laws forbid short term rentals and I assume most rental leases do as well but I'm curious if Airbnb is de facto illegal under JC law. Do we know? Do we have a hotel tax?

There was a discussion on Brian Lehrer yesterday about the NY AG letter sent Airbnb requesting a list of their high volume Airbnb "landlords". A few JC's called in to say they were listing for the Superbowl. It was funny to hear "landlords" express amazement that they had to pay income taxes on their rents.

NYC's recently won the right (trial court level) to "rent" if they are also in the apartment at the same time. Renting a room out versus the whole apartment. Interesting stuff.

Rachel

Does anyone know what's up with this place? We tried to go on Sunday for lunch and they wouldn't seat us because the kitchen was backed up by 20 minutes (that was their guess). The place was maybe a third full. We couldn't even sit and have drinks. So strange.

At WTC Around 12:30pm they said it was signal failure on the Hoboken line but after taking the Hoboken train out of service and shoving us all on the Newark train they then opened the doors on the Hoboken train and gave us 2 seconds to run across the platform for it before pulling out of the station. Most people stayed on the Newark train not knowing what to do. Good luck indeed.

People were discussing progressive tax ideas, I just added it to the pile. All the concerns you mention are valid and point to the depth of corruption in JC.

To your point that a JC municipal tax would be a competitive disadvantage driving people to Hoboken, it works both ways: How long do you think Hoboken will let us go on without a reval when their reval results might drive people to JC? Maybe this is all part of the plan. In Hoboken, you have new condo owners paying 30K/year prop tax dying to stick it to town house owners paying 18K/year prop tax.

Did anyone sell their town home in 2010-2011 fearing the reval? How do they feel now that it's on hold especially as housing prices have climbed over the last year?

Wait, Hoboken has a taxi authority and JC doesn't? Is that why you can't reliably get a cab in JC? The more you know.

Let me inject an even less popular idea than Aniara's: A Municipal Income Tax. You don't get much more progressive than that.

Ever wonder how NYC has relatively low property taxes, except on landlords? That's how. Although because NYC is a renter city the increased tax on rental property owners versus owner occupiers is steep and brings in a haul. Does JC do that?

Back to assessment & the reval: How did we figure out the ratio? How do you determine what side of the magic 33 you're on?

Since the Hoboken reval is underway with appraisers currently out in the field what are the chance Hoboken could sue JC to force our reval? Hoboken is tiny, their reval could be done rather quickly.

Thanks,
Rachel

My understanding is that it's not how long you've owned the property that creates the discrepancy since a sale in JC doesn't trigger an assessment/reval (that's called a rolling reval and it exists in other states, mostly on the west coast).

If we use the example of 2 adjacent "identical" townhouses: One purchased and held since 1985 and the other in 2007, but both in the same condition - meaning there were no improvements in either property that triggered a reassessment via legal permitting - then their assessed value has stayed the same since the last reval, that's the whole problem.

My condo didn't exist during the last reval. The JC Tax assessor can assess a value on new housing stock - seemingly out of whole cloth, a process which should also seriously by examined since no one can explain what goes into the formula. Why is it so hard to figure out a rational assessment for existing housing stock?

We bought in 2007. These are what the numbers looks like:
sold: $590K
size: 2b/2b, 1000 sq ft
tax: 2012 $13K in taxes until I filed an appeal which brought them down to $10K

On a related note, hasn't Hoboken just ordered a reval? Their last one was in 1988. http://hoboken411.com/archives/93292 Dawn Zimmer is getting heat from her constituents for not taking action on the reval sooner.

I just got a Fulop campaign flyer that quotes Fulop saying, "...I'll fight to stop the tax revaluation..." The second page of the flyer has a bulleted list of things Fulop will do as mayor. The first is to actually stop, not just fight, the tax revaluation. Does the Mayor have that power?

What would the procedure be for setting aside the reval? I think the reval is a fair idea and one that a lot of new condo owners paying full freight might welcome. For some of us, our property taxes might actually go down.

I haven't seen every debate but was the potential to rollback the reval ever discussed?

Thanks,
Rachel