Yih-wu H. in Oswego: set to lose $102K in equity in 11 years

Yih-wu and his wife, Yuying, have listed their 3,346 four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath in Oswego for $378,000.

They bought the home in 2007 for $395,000, or $480,000 in today’s dollars.

Yih-wu and Yuying’s tax bill increased 29 percent from $8,168 in 2007 to $11,383 in 2017 at a current tax burden of 3 percent each year.

Yih-wu and Yuying have paid about $128,760 in property taxes over their 11 years of Oswego home ownership, or 34 percent of their current sale price.

Yih-wu and Yuying have paid about $128,760 in property taxes over their 11 years of Oswego home ownership, or 34 percent of their current sale price.

Put another way, while Yih-wu and Yuying’s home value decreased by 21 percent, their property taxes effectively increased by nearly a third of what they were when they first bought.

Indiana has a hard 1 percent cap on property taxes. This means local governments are not allowed under state law to charge homeowner’s more than 1 percent of their home’s assessed value per year. The average property tax rate for the state of Indiana is 0.89 percent. Meanwhile the average property tax rate in Illinois is 2.3 percent.

If Yih-wu lived in Indiana the most he could be charged in property taxes would be around $3,794 per year or $7,589 less than what he currently pays in Illinois.