The Hidden Costs of Property Taxes: A Tale of Two Houses

From Art Laffer:  

Since the housing bubble peak of 2006-2008: 

•  2.8% Ohio property tax rate: owners of Dr. Art Laffer's childhood home have paid approximately $125,000 in property taxes while their home appreciated by $75,000. 
•  0.6% Nashville property tax rate: paid $250,000 in property taxes while his current house appreciated in value by $2 million. 

The causality is hard to disentangle from the correlation: 

• it could be that unattractive states adopt high taxes, and/or
• that high taxes make states unattractive, and/or 
• that high taxes are correlated with some other factor (Democratic control?) that causes states to become unattractive. 

 Regardless,

BOTTOM LINE: before buying a house, especially one in a high tax state, look ahead and reason back.