photo by ArtChick
Every senior in town is subsidizing the residents with children in school.
Without exception, every time a senior sells their home it’s purchased by new residents with children in schools.
If the historic trend accelerates (due to expected tax increases because of Governor elect Murphy’s promises ) then our taxes will go up exponentially as seniors move away.
The best way to keep our property taxes to a minimum is to keep our seniors , empty nesters , and those residents without children in the schools.
For the tax dollars the seniors pay they get virtually nothing in return. And do so cheerfully and willingly.
Messy and deeply flawed logic.. older homes owned by older residents get bought and renovated by new families, they get reassessed and see a large bump in property taxes. A quick tour of our neighborhoods on Zillow shows this quite clearly. Those seniors moving out were once younger, likely with families and children in school and reaped the benefits of the village and contributed to the rising tide of home and zip code value. It is what we call a “cycle”. That cycle repeats over and over and helps provide a floor for house prices. Murphy is going to make a huge mess in Ridgewood, you think the recent parking fee increase was jarring? Just wait.
Seniors and everyone else in town get great services that cost a lot. So you are way off there.
Home sales do not lead to higher mil rates for property taxes, you are way off on how that works. Murphy is about to raise those rates whether you have kids or not, old or young, empty nest or full. Make Ridgewood family friendly and we can keep the floor. Turn it into a retirement community and good luck selling your old house.
Let’s ease up on the fact-less rhetoric.
The same house purchased twenty or thirty years ago which has increased in value exponentially over the ensuing years. However the profit is protected (for the time being) from capital gains taxes. Seniors also enjoy the homestead rebates from the state that many younger homeowners are excluded from. And every dollar spent by a “young person” in an establishment offering senior discounts is subsidizing their cost. Sorry, that’s the way it goes.
The problem is Senior citizens cannot afford to retire in Ridgewood like back in the day
SErniors could afford to retire here if we lower thier taxes – – it would be well worth it to cut their property taxes in half as opposed to having them move on and a family with 3 children come in – – what does a year cost us? 18k per child? the math is easy to do.
If the mortgage has been satisfied, most of those seniors can afford to retire here. There are a number of retirees in my Ridgewood neighborhood. That said, many choose to leave for warmer climates in areas with less expensive housing, cashing in on the increased value of their Ridgewood homes, improving their quality of life when they move.
12:39 your logic is flawed, you must be a recent NYC transplant. I lived here since 1969 And never had children in schools. We chose don Bosco and immaculate heart. My business is overseas so unlike the majority of residents employed by finance industries in NYC , I don’t need the train. Nor do I need the ny attitude that you have. Not every new arrival puts on a big addition . If you knew what your were talking about, renovating an existing kitchen or bath almost zero property tax consequences. I live here for the ambiance (not to socialize with liberal NYC transplants) as I spend more time at my summer and winter homes, I re-evaluate my decision to keep this place and subsidize your offspring. When I get my 30k tax bill it always makes me think if it’s worth it for the 5 months total I spend here. Should I leave sooner than planned, tell be a large family buying a nice 6 bedroom home. And the schools will be bulging if the trend accelerates.. And if you had a clue about “reaping benefits ” you would understand that any profit over 250k per,spouse is not indexed for inflation so it’s of no value. Maybe the temporary residents who spend 10 years here reap those so called benefits before they bail out and go back to NYC but not the long time residents who made this a nice place to live.
Every family and every business pays taxes here. Many of those families use the schools. Some do not, and not just retired folk. Many of those families use the parks. Some do not. Many of those families use the library. Some do not.
It would be difficult to find any two families (or businesses) that benefit equally from every service provided by taxes. Any attempt to pit one group against another based on who you think is subsidizing whom is flawed and divisive.
This is an incomplete and not well thought out argument, focusing on flow income and compmetely ignoring asset values.
If taxes a lowered sharply ONLY for older residents, they will have to be made up for by signifcant property tax hikes for younger residents (to bring school costs closer to pay and you use).
The marginal buyers of houses in Ridgewood are these same young families. If property taxes go up substantially for them, home prices will decline to compensate for the increase.
Assuming the childless retired resident is charged nothing for school, hence reducing property taxed by 65%. This will roughly ve equal to 1.5% of home value annually.
But a corresponding tax hike of 75%+ on younger residents will quickly wipe out the value of homes.
The same resident could easily lose 20-30% of the value of the home in that scenario.
That does not seem like a winning proposition to me.
Hey 735, I’m not sure if there is a way for you to be more out of touch. Please try harder. Your story is so authentic, relatable, and relevant. How do you do it? When you get to your 3rd home drop us a line back here in reality.
Parks and libraries do not comprise much of the tax bills. Schools are 65-70% of the tax bill.
It’s a fact that seniors subsidize families with children using the schools,
On my block there are 12 homes. Only 4 have school age children, if the other 8 bail out sooner than the historical progression, the schools will be overwhelmed . I seriously doubt values would decrease unless all 8 put their home on the market the same week bloating the inventory.
AND it wouldn’t be so bad if “marginal” buyers could not afford to buy here. They are usually the most vocal obnoxious disrespectful groups trying to push the rest of us to further subsidize their dreams such as the Graydon water park folly and expensive school programs and sports fields.
I get a kick out of all the liberals talking about “fairness”.
How is it fair that senior citizens on fixed incomes who never had children in the schools or singles with no children are supposed to pay for the education of someone else’s children?
I shouldn’t have to subsidize the education of the children of someone (typically a wealthy wall streeter) who earns a lot more then me,
I guess it become “fair” due to the liberal mantra of sticking someone else with the bill.
1037. I do it by working hard. I already spend 181 days in “exile” out of state so nj can’t pick my pocket, apparently you don’t get it and never will. By the way, you effed up my order at the drive thru yesterday . You gave me fries and I ordered onion rings.
@7:11 said – “AND it wouldn’t be so bad if “marginal” buyers could not afford to buy here. ”
What a stupid comment. It is not about marginal buyers not being able to afford to buy. Today a $1MM house pays about $25k in taxes. If the same house is required to pay $40k in taxes tomorrow (to offset the school tax burden for those without kids), the buyer will no longer be willing to pay $1MM.
That is a simple economic relationship. I am highly suspicious that someone who does not understand that can be an international businessman.
If the parents and the School Board would limit their dreams to what is NECESSARY to get a good education, the taxes for schools would be reduced. Kids don’t care about windows (except to look through them when they are bored in class.) nor golden fixtures in their bathrooms. If the fixtures work, leave them until one actually needs fixing. (and the new low-water toilets develop problems much sooner than the older ones did. Particularly in costly water leaks.) The furnaces are obviously not being fed coal, so leave them alone. Small repairs can usually fix anything that is wrong with them. Concentrate on hiring good teachers, not an excess of “support staff”, and all would be well in our system. (Which has fallen from high national ratings to mediocre state ratings in the time we’ve been here and support staff has increased drastically!)
The need for more “support staff” aka administrators is driven by the explosion in regulations, as well as rising insanity of “my kid can do no wrong” helicopter parents.
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When the federal Department of Education sends around a “Dear colleague” letter imposing 20 new guidelines on what is to be considered rape, and 10 new guidelines on transgender bathrooms, you cannot have teachers deal with that.
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When poor little innocent Johnny’s whole family comes baying for everyone’s blood because little Johnny got roughed up in a fistfight after school off-school grounds, you need an army of administrators and lawyers to deal with that.
Look at the demographics and the resulting projections for school enrollment in Ridgewood. Enrollment is expected to fall, not rise, in the next 10 years.
If every family that did not have children in schools had its taxes reduced, we would succeed in driving out families with children because their property tax bills would increase significantly.
The value of your home would decrease significantly if those taxes increased. Good luck retiring to a warmer clime if that happens.
Imagine the pressure for sidewalks in every neighborhood of Ridgewood if Ridgewood became a town of senior citizens with few children, the pressure for deli’s or stores in every neighborhood, the pressure for more senior services. Some costs would decrease while others would increase.
Simple minded solutions solve nothing. They always create new problems, many of them unexpected.
@10:46 you’re pretty stupid. If you can REALlLy afford 30k in taxes… Then what’s another 10k big boy. If you can’t afford to live here move to waldwick . This place is full of people scraping to live here and thanks to low interest rates , low down payments , and 30’year mortgages they are a paycheck away from insolvency . They bless us with their presence for 10’years (after voting yes on every school budget) then bail out and move back to NYC. This used to be a town of solid financial residents who stayed here for generations not temporary limousine liberals putting up a false front with their leased range rovers and Mercedes.