Think about a resale if you are concerned about the cost of building new and all that entails, i.e. bond etc. Resales north of 466A have lower bonds and are perhaps already paid off. If you insist on a new home then unfortunately the expenses have to be considered in the whole price of the home. Good luck in whatever you decide.

You will have to pay more taxes. The bond fund is higher and taxes in the new section is higher. I like the new section so I accepted the increase. Although I would have picked a different model so my taxes would be lower.

I used to live by Brownwood and moved to Marsh Bend. If you buy in the new sections, you are no longer in the county. You will have an additional tax of $875 for city taxes. Also be aware that Sumter County charges you more for the model you build. You can tell by the Type code on you tax records. Example: I am a type code of DH72, my appraisal will be done at a sq. ft. rate of $116.(Bridgeport) If you build a DH71 home, the tax rate is $105 per sq. ft. (Mossy Oak, IRIS). Example: I paid $450,000 for my house and Mossy Oak model paid $550,000 for their home with a pool. They were assessed at $20,000 less than my home because Sumter county charges per your model of home. I filed a VAB against Sumter county for unfair taxation but their is no law they have to be fair. Lake County does not use the models of homes. So my taxes did go up about $3000 more per year.

My agent told us taxes were 1.6% of purchase price and this is pretty spot on (without Homestead). My bond is $26,500 (new construction) which is $1,576 per year (payments of $47,280 over life of bond at 3.67% interest). If you add the taxes and bond payment together, I'm at 2% of purchase price annually so this agent is not misleading you.

As I regularly state, when talking money, people rarely state the truth.
For me, my truth is about that much.

An endless debate. Pay off the bond or not. We bought about 9 years ago. Our bond was, as I said about, 22,000 and the interest was 5%. My view and I'm not expert. At the time we bought our home mortgage money was 3.5%. The bond should be in the price of the home. If, your home is 350,000 with a 22,000 bond it is 372000. A bit of slight of hand. A deal at 350,000 only problem is you are paying 372,000 for it.

PEOPLE-they have always been the same. If, someone else did something and it was wrong they scream what a fool he is. If, the other person makes money by doing what they screamed he was a fool for doing they want to steal part of his gain and call it taxes.

You could buy a house where the bond has been paid off, a pre-owned home. There are lots of them. The price range you stated they will be custom homes, possibly on a golf course. They might even have mature trees on the lot.

Taxes
 

I live in Hillsborough, on a golf course and paid more than that for a house. I am in Sumter, Wildwood and if she is paying that amount of tax, she must be smoking weed.

Ohiobuckeye
 

Also remember don’t think your going to build a home of your choice, it won’t happen!

Looks like you have really researched this. As to, "they have to be fair," the term fair is
impossible to define.

As to appealing your taxes, we are ex-Long Islanders often referred to as the land of taxes. Many years ago, they discovered a racial issue in taxes. All homes rose at the same rate. Home values did not rise as much in black areas. They hired a firm to reassess all homes based on current market value of course with fudge factor tossed in.

We had a regular ritual of appealing your real estate taxes every year. You would get mailings from attorneys to hire them to do it. You would pay them the fee to file the appeal, plus some minor fee and they would take if I recall half of the first year tax saving. Like here there was no shortage of articles and meeting on the subject.
Rumor of fact? The attorneys would send piles of forms to the county employees and get them to actually fill out the forms being paid by the taxpayers.

We would appeal our taxes every year. Tradition they would toss you a bone for doing the effort. It was easy. All the information was posted on line. You would look up three homes that were similar and paying less than you,put them on your form and send it in.

Taxes-it is always so. We all want and we all want people other than us to pay for it.
I too am proudly guilty.

We have been told by numerous real estate agents that it does not pay to pay off your bond unless you plan to spend many years here.

They say you will not get the dollars back upon selling.

great info
 

thanks for sharing

Everyone has a different story and taxes and bonds change from county to county and neighborhood to neighborhood. Bonds are lower in Villas verses other neighborhoods based on number of houses in a smaller area of land.

For us, we have a Villa that was $215000 2 years ago. Our bond is part of our mortgage payment as escrow with taxes and insurance. Our escrow payment is about $600 a month. Taxes for this past year was $4800 but we are in Marion County.

Hopefully you will be able to get the numbers straightened out before you move forward.

May not be that far off with a $400k house with annual bond payment, annual maint fee and taxes. Look up the tax bills on some properties down there.

Buy a preowned home that is less then 10 years old. Many have the bond paid off and the taxes are lower too. It's only a new house for a day. My two cents....

Thought the exact same thing!

Sumter County Tax Calculator

g4.sumterpa.com/GIS/Tax_Estimator.asp

I was told when buying new that the "assessed value" would be 80% of sale price. The above link to tax calculator doesn't indicate same so we'll see when bill come out if I was misinformed.

Your scenario in calculator:

Taxes $7,087 (using Wildwood option in the tax calculator)
Annual Maintenance est $650
Annual bond est $2000
Annual fire dist $124
Total $9,861

More info on exemptions