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Massachusetts homebuyers will not just be paying more for houses and interest on home loans in 2016. They'll be paying about 4 percent more for property taxes, according to an analysis by The Boston Globe of 328 of the state's 351 communities for which comparable data were available.
The average real estate tax bill on a single-family home will increase by about $206 this year. The average property tax bill for a single-family home this year will be $5,438, or 3.9 percent higher than the average of $5,232 in 2015. The average assessed value of a single-family home has had a similar increase of 3.8 percent to $383,606.
Homeowners in 46 communities will see their real estate tax bills increase "on average by 6 percent or more."
"Statewide, increases range from less than 1 percent in more than a dozen communities to as much as 17 percent in the City of Chelsea; or from as little as $3 in Bridgewater to as much as $825 in Brookline. Boston homeowners will see a $15 increase in their bills on average. Among other nearby communities, bills in Lexington will rise, on average, by $764; in Newton by $637; in Somerville by $166; and in Cambridge by $29." Not every town increased property taxes. The town of Wayland's tax bills will decline on average by $319, or 2.7 percent, to $11,730 in 2016 despite an increase in property values because of a budget surplus.
Over the last 10 years, the increase in residential real estate taxes has far outpaced the increase in property values, with average tax bills rising 42 percent while property values have dropped 0.7 percent, according to the The Boston Globe’s analysis.
Property tax increases are limited under state law. Proposition 2½, which passed in a statewide referendum in 1980 and became law in 1982, restricts property tax increases to 2½ percent of the total property taxes collected in a given community, with some exceptions. Voters can also override the limit.
Mortgage interest rates are slightly higher than their recent lows and expected to go a littler higher in 2016. The median price of a home in Massachusetts has risen in many cities and towns in the Greater Boston area for several years. Add in constantly rising property taxes and first-time homebuyers are faced with an increasingly less affordable real estate market in Massachusetts.
