Where is His Cut?

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger might have the politician gene, but he lacks other ones.

Toddler and Property Taxes

Breaking with his father's avoidance of property tax increases and his own campaign promise not to impose them, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger made it clear over the weekend that he thinks a property tax hike is one way to balance the 2008 county budget. Stroger made the comment in an interview that aired on "Fox Chicago Sunday." In response to a question by hosts Dane Placko and Jack Conaty about how he planned to balance the budget, Stroger replied, "For years, we haven't taken any of the natural growth [in property values]. We should go to the next level that we can."

Foreclosures still raging

Chicago-area foreclosures, which set a record last year, are projected to reach full-blown crisis levels in 2007.

Cook County is on pace to record at least 30,000 and as many as 36,000 foreclosure filings this year, according to Cook County Circuit Court Judge Dorothy Kinnaird, who presides over the Chancery Division, which handles foreclosures. That would mean a 35% to 62% increase from 2006, when 22,248 filings were easily the highest in county history after having risen 36% from the previous year. (The court combines both commercial and home foreclosures, but residential mortgages comprise the vast majority of its cases.)

The driving force behind the foreclosures: adjustable-rate mortgages, which proliferated during the housing boom, according to a new report by the National Training and Information Center, a Chicago affordable-housing advocacy group. The mortgages offered low interest rates for a limited period and often let buyers skip down payments and get approval without showing proof of income, or both. Many buyers landed in trouble when their interest rates — and their monthly payments — adjusted upward, the NTIC said.

Chicago and Cook County is not the only place that is suffering problems. A wise political leader would look out side the walls of his fiefdom to gain some fore-sight to the problems he might occur one day. Just like Chicago is oblivious to the housing crash all around her, Toddler is oblivious to his own problems.

Property Tax Dilemma

Kevin Depew in Tuesday's Five Things wrote about the Property Tax Dilemma.

The Florida legislature plans to convene a special session in mid-June that could result in more than $30 billion in property-tax relief over the next five years, the Wall Street Journal reported.

*Thanks to the housing boom, the average annual property-tax bill in the U.S. was $1,132 per person in 2005, up 13% from 2000 in inflation-adjusted terms, according to data from the Commerce Department.
*The boom was so strong that in many areas housing prices rose too fast for local tax assessors to keep up, the WSJ said.
*Now, tax assessments are catching up just as market prices are declining, a double whammy for homeowners facing increasing mortgage payments due to resets, or homeowners now trapped in residents with property tax bills edging them out of their comfort zone.
*But that's the homeowners problem.
*Here is the dilemma for states: Reducing property-tax revenues threatens budgets of cities and counties. However, a property-tax cut could stimulate the economy by leaving homeowners with a bit more money in their pockets.
*Florida doesn't have a personal income tax, and its cities and counties depend heavily on property taxes to pay for services such as police and firefighters, the Journal noted.

I have read that the County's plan is to line up existing home tax assessments to new construction. Existing home have already been assessed. The taxes are based on those older numbers. There was a cap on how much they can go up: 7%. New construction is different. The County assigns taxes based on the SALES PRICE of the unit. Look in my right side Links for the CC Assessors and CC Treasurers web sites. You can find yours and everyone taxes.

The County's logic is that if you bought that N.W. Side bungalow for $500,000 then they will tax you at $500,000. Sounds fair right? Not to the Jones' that are pushing the edge of foreclosure with that 1/2 Million dollar note, just to "live the American Dream". With a steep hike in takes, the Jones' might go over the edge. Florida is learning that higher taxes can lead to more foreclosures, and more foreclosures mean less taxes coming in.

When will Toddler learn?