WWYD - Offer and tax related

DH and I found a home we both love – this is the 3rd home we are bidding on – we have many specific attributes we are looking for, and this home has most of them. We have been limiting our search to homes with taxes at/around 10K – anything much over 10K we weren’t even considering. So this home we love, we put an offer on last night, to find out today that they misrepresented the complete taxes and they are not 10K, they are 11.5K! That is a big difference for us and the monthly payment. So now we don’t know what to do. Our offer was pretty aggressive, but with taxes this high, I feel like we should revise our offer to compensate for the difference. Would that make sense? The seller is apparently seriously considering our offer. We would have been willing to even increase our offer in order to get this home, but the taxes really make it more difficult for us to do so and I think we will have to pull it back a bit. We are desirable buyers, so we’ve been told, we are both employed, pre-approved, have 20% to put down, and are flexible with our closing timeline since we have nothing to sell. Any advice? WWYD?

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

Did you look at what the taxes are w/ Basic Star? Might bridge the gap...

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

Tough call. Sadly the taxes are only going to go up so at 11.5 you are above your max.

If revising the offer is going to make a difference for you payment wise then I would do it. But you said you would have gone higher if the taxes were 10k so you have to do the math and see what makes sense and what you are comfortable with.

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

do you know what the assessed value of the house is for the taxes

is the offer less than assesssed value - then you can get them lower - not sure what town you are in but i lowered my taxes by $2700 because there was a big difference between the tax assessed value and what we paid for the house - it is easy to do yourself you just have to be prepared to appeal the town decision because most towns deny 90% of claims - my town gives you a blank form and a form with directions how to fill it out and what you need - they also do this for the appeal

also if you go forward and this goes for any house - get a copy of the appraisal from the bank because it will help in fighting your taxes

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

Taxes were the biggest issue when we were house hunting, we would LOVE the house but the taxes were way over what we felt comfortable with. Remember taxes always go up, and you can try to grieve but its not guaranteed. Everytime we were about to put an offer I would go on mynassauproperty.com to double check....Since they didn't list it correctly see what they say if you lower the lower.


Ughhh I hate NY sometimes!

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

If the taxes were misrepresented in the listing you can reduce your offer to represent a pymt you are more comfortable with. Any other offers are also most likely going off the incorrect information and may not be viable.
If the hosue has star now that will carry over until you apply for your star. If you don't escrow taxes you may be able to pay the reduced amount since you will be paying directly to the town.
Good luck!

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

I don't think they were mis-represented, they were never verified which could have been done by calling the town.
When we were selling I know our agent would telling buyers to verify them when they asked how much the taxes were.

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

I am not 100%, but if I remember correctly, if the previous person already has the STAR, then it should carry over for the remainder of the year. Call your town and ask. In the meantime, you can get the form and fill it out to be ready for the next deadline.

Also, if you buy the house, you can grieve the taxes. We used Mark Lewis and they were lowered by about $1500 a year. Bettter yet, maybe you can have your realtor ask that the current owners grieve the taxes and if the taxes are reduced, it can be put in the contract that they pay his fee.

Thirdly, don't give up on a great house over $1500 a year. That would add about $100 more a month to your mortgage. You could cut corners in another area to make up for that.

Good Luck!

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

When I am a listing agent, I always verify the taxes independently. In my office, we list the taxes without any exemptions, and will often put in the remarks that (Basic STAR will reduce taxes by approx. $ __).

But many agents do the opposite -- they list the taxes with the exemption included, and then note that the taxes are with basic STAR. The obvious advantage of doing that is that the taxes appear to be lower than they are!

So if you are thinking of making an offer on a house, I would always verify the taxes to make sure you have the correct info. A lot of companies even put remarks on their listing disclaiming any responsibility/liability for the info conveyed on the listing. As a buyer, you must do your due diligence (either on your own, or with the help of a buyer's agent).

Also, it is a good idea when getting a preapproval to make sure the letter states not just the amount you are approved for, but what tax liability the preapproval assumes. The mortgage lender we recommend includes that in their letters, but if I get a preapproval that doesn't have that info, I often call the loan officer whose name is on the letter to verify that my customer (or the person who is making an offer on my listing) can afford the house.

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

Welcome to Long Island.. sadly, your taxes are going to go up every year, no matter what!

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

If I were you, before walking away, I would lower my offer and see what happens. The sellers should be aware that inaccurate info was on their listing and hopefully, they will understand where you are coming from with the change in your offer. Good luck!

Re: WWYD - Offer and tax related

Thanks everyone for your input.

We found the error because we were doing our due diligence. We do have a buyer's agent and she called the town to confirm the taxes for us, but this was after we had already put in a higher offer. We looked at our numbers last night, spoke with our realtor and mortgage broker and decided that lowering the offer makes the most sense for us at this time. We did inform our mortgage broker of the taxes listed when he worked on our pre-approval, so once the Star rating kicks in (if it doesn't just roll over), our payments really won't be any different than we had assumed. But since, as many of you pointed out, our taxes are only going to climb so we want to be sure we are taking that into consideration when bidding on a house.

Hopefully the seller will continue to seriously consider our offer.