How to Search Property Taxes
- 1). Go to your city's or county's real estate assessor's website. All U.S. cities and towns impose a real estate tax on properties, and the assessor or appraiser office of that city or town keeps record on all property taxes. When you enter the website, click on the Real Estate Assessor link. From there, enter the address of the property you are interested in buying and hit search.
- 2). View residential data. You should be able to see the recent assessment value of the home. Some assessors' websites provides on that same screen the tax rate of the property. If the tax rate is not available, then move to the next step below. Many of these websites have public information disclaimers that you must read and agree to before you can access the data on the property that you are searching. Some require you to register with your email address in order to get access to the property data.
- 3). Obtain your local tax rate on the property. This can be obtained through your city's assessor's website or by calling the office. When you have the assessed value of the property plus the tax rate, then you can calculate the property tax by dividing the assessed value of the property by the rate. For example, if the home you are purchasing is assessed at $260,000 and your locality's real estate rate is 0.0105, then the annual property tax on the property is $2,730.
- 4). Use other real estate online websites. If for some reason you are unable to go directly to your locality's assessor's website, the best website that can lead you directly to the assessor's website is NETRonline. Once there, choose the state that you live in and then the city or county. Then, NETR connects you directly to the city or county assessor's website.
- 5). Search your property tax on Zillow.com by typing the address information on the Search link. Once you click on the details link, the property tax information on your selected property is listed under Charts & Data. What is good about this website is that you do not need to calculate the property tax; the information is readily available.
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