Jesse W.: It was really difficult to justify to a mortgage lender that we can make the tax payments

Jesse owns a 1,860-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom Wauconda home that is currently assessed at $214,917.

Jesse took possession of the home in 2012 when it was worth around $154,000, or $169,126.74 in today’s dollars. He has paid $30,426 in property taxes since 2012, about a fifth of the original value of his home.

When I bought my home in 2012, the fair market value was listed at $268,536.00. The actual $154,000,” Jesse said. “We appealed the tax rate and adjusted it at the actual purchased price. Now it basically crept up to where it was six years [ago].”

Jesse is currently paying $5,890 per year in property taxes on his home, about 2.7 percent of the Lake County Assessor claimed value of $214,917.

Jesse is currently paying $5,890 per year in property taxes on his home, about 2.7 percent of the Lake County Assessor claimed value of $214,917.

“[The impact of high taxes] is substantial,” jesse said. “Obviously I would be doing other things with the money – home improvements, savings or paying off student debt. That kind of stuff. Additionally, when we were in the market for a house, we had a lot of issues being able purchasing a house because the taxes were so high that it was really difficult to justify to a mortgage lender that we can make the tax payments. We were actually very limited. It wasn’t the purchase price that was limiting us. It was the tax payments.”

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 Jesse lived in Indiana the most he could be charged in property taxes would be $2,149.17 per year or $3,740.83 less than what he currently pays in Illinois.

“I think that’s something people can comprehend and understand than a rate that changes every year with a value that changes every year,” Jesse said. “I was looking through my previous tax bills and every year it’s a different rate with a different market value.”