Diamond Supporter
Bronze Supporter
- Messages
- 35
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- 44
Ya that sucks! I sell residential HVAC, Home Depot and Lowe's uses us etc. In California we only got taxed on equipment, Portland has no tax but in Washington we get taxed on the whole deal! When I moved up here to help build service patriots I got an apartment with a ten month lease. I knew I'd be driving around Oregon and Washington, from Seattle to Bend. Each county is so different. I'm leaning towards moving over to Oregon so I can buy unrestricted before the libs lock that place down too!I've lived in the same house for over 37 years. Mrs. Merkt makes occasional noise about "getting something smaller." Both as to structure and land. Which require continual effort that old people typically are less and less able to handle. I haven't reached that point yet. My line of resistance is mainly built on the costs involved. A major issue for me is, Warshington state has a real estate excise tax (REET). Which is a tax on the SELLER when the property changes hands. In my county, the tax on sales up to $500K is 1.60 percent. On amounts of sales between $500K and $750K, the rate is 1.78%. Of those amounts, the state gets the first whole one percent; the county gets the remainder. The REET is legalized extortion. This is just free money to the state and county, they didn't provide any service to earn it (regular extortionate property taxes pay for that) or do anything to factually entitle them to or deserve it. They didn't take any risk in the property investment, they didn't do anything to help keep it up over the years.
Inflation has turned the REET into a real bonanza for the state and counties. When a house cost $50K, the rate was more like 1%, so the tax was $500. Bad enough. But now, if a typical house (not uncommon in this county and often greater), that 1.6% is $8,000. I could go on about this, but further comments would swerve into the arena of politics.
Of course there are the usual, physical expenses of moving. Then you get to your new place, and have to make changes and improvements to it to make it more suitable to yourself.