One great feeling for many people is seeing their home value go through the roof. Not so much getting a much bigger property tax bill because of it.
In Florida, Republican lawmakers are responding to homeowners’ complaints about growing levies. These levies have gone up a lot in the past few years as prices and demand for real estate have gone through the roof. Through a constitutional change, Gov. Ron DeSantis has recently started to push to get rid of property taxes in the Sunshine State.
Many people in Florida have seen their property taxes go up more than anywhere else in the country lately. A Redfin study found that between 2019 and 2024, the average property tax bill in Jacksonville and Tampa went up by almost 60%. During the same time period, taxes went up 48% for people in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
A company called CoreLogic found that between 2019 and 2024, the average Florida homeowner’s tax bill went up by 47.5%.
Between 2019 and 2023, the median property taxes in the US went up by 23.6%, from $2,287 to $2,826.
If you look at the rest of the country, Florida’s average actual property tax rate of 0.79% of a home’s assessed value is a little below the norm.
A study by the Tax Foundation of 2023 rates shows that real estate taxes paid as a percentage of the value of homes that are lived in by their owners are usually higher in the Northeast.
You can move your mouse over the map below to see what the rates were in each state and DC.
Out of all the states and Washington, DC, New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut had the highest rates. Hawaii had the lowest rate, at 0.27%. Some Mountain states, like Colorado and Nevada, had low rates.
Older homeowners have told Business Insider that it’s especially hard to deal with rising taxes, home repair costs, and insurance premiums when you’re on a fixed income. Many of these people who own property live in Florida, where insurance costs have also gone up sharply, making things even harder for homeowners.
Important local services and infrastructure, like schools, police and fire companies, roads, and more, are paid for by property taxes.
The locally imposed tax takes in about $50 billion a year in Florida, which doesn’t have a personal income tax. The Florida Policy Institute recently said that property taxes bring in between 50% and 60% of the money for school districts, 18% of the money for counties, and 17% of the money for cities and towns.
The Institute said that if the state didn’t tax homes, it would have to at least double its sales tax to 12% in order to make enough money.
Other states have tried, but Florida would be the first in the US to get rid of property taxes. Voters in North Dakota turned down a ballot measure last year that would have ended property taxes based on how much a home was rated for.
