Roughly $363.3 billion in property taxes were levied on single-family homes nationwide in 2023, up 6.9% from $339.8 billion in 2022, according to ATTOM.
The increase was almost double the 3.6% growth rate in 2022 – and the largest in the past five years, the firm says in its annual property tax analysis report.
The report also shows that the average tax on single-family homes in the U.S. increased 4.1% in 2023, to $4,062, after going up 3% the previous year.
The latest average tax resulted in an effective tax rate nationwide of 0.87% – up slightly from 0.83% in 2022, marking the first increase since 2017.
The report analyzed property tax data collected from county tax assessor offices nationwide at the state, metro and county levels along with estimated market values of single-family homes calculated using an automated valuation model (AVM).
The effective tax rate shows the average annual property tax expressed as a percentage of the average estimated market value of homes in each geographic area.
“Property taxes took an unusually high turn upward last year, pushing effective rates up, while huge gaps in average tax bills between different parts of country remained in place,” says Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. “The tax increases were likely connected, at least in part, to inflationary pressures on the cost of operating local governments and schools, along with rising public employee wages and other major expenses.
“Ongoing disparities in how much homeowners pay in different parts of the country are usually related to a couple of important things: varying levels of government services and reduced economies of scale in metro areas with many small municipalities that each maintain separate local governments and school systems,” Barber adds.
The highest effective property tax rates in 2023 were in Northeast and Midwest, led by Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and Nebraska.
Photo: Jon Tyson