"star savings"

I've been looking at houses on mlsli.com and some of the descriptions say "this does not include a star savings of $$$"

what the heck does this mean??

Re: "star savings"

that is the flat "real" amount of the taxes for the house.. it does not include the star savings which you would apply for and get when you buy the house

Re: "star savings"

It's a program run by NYS - that gives relief to homeowners on the school tax portion of their tax bill.

There are limitations to the program: the house has to be your primary residence and the combined income of the homeowners cannot exceed $500,000

Re: "star savings"

There are various exemptions available to reduce your property tax liability. The most common one is the basic STAR, the amount of which varies by school district. There are additional/greater exemptions for seniors, veterans, etc.

As the previous poster said, it has to be your primary residence and there are income restrictions, but most people buying in the areas I work in will qualify as long as they intend to reside in the house.

Be careful when looking at listings. Most real estate companies will list the property taxes in full, without any exemptions (and they may put in a comment that "the STAR exemption would lower taxes by x dollars"). However, some real estate companies do the reverse, and list the property taxes with the basic STAR or with the current owners' exemptions (which may be greater than the basic STAR and for which the buyers may not be eligible).

Also, the new school taxes come out Oct 1, but new general taxes don't come out until Jan. 1. I find that many listing agents don't update the taxes on their listings when the Oct. 1 date passes, so the taxes may be outdated. For example, if someone took a listing in July, and correctly calculated the taxes, they may not have adjusted the taxes to account for new school taxes when they came out in October.

To make sure the tax info on a listing is accurate and up to date, you should always independently verify. In Nassau, it's very easy to do on the mynassauproperty website. You can check out the total taxes for this year, the school taxes that have come out for next year, and see what exemptions the current owner gets. If they don't get the basic STAR, and you want to do know the amount of the basic STAR, you can check out neighboring homes (as long as it's the same school district, the amount of the basic STAR is the same, regardless of the house).