This video should clear up a lot of misunderstandings about Florida Property Taxes and the Florida Homestead advantages. I wanted to do this video on Florida property taxes, homestead benefits, and CDD fees because there is SO much misunderstands on these 3 areas. I will explain each advantage to you. Watch and let me know what you think
Transcription
Hi everyone. This is your Tampa Realtor Lance Mohr and in this video, I want to talk about Florida property taxes and more specifically the homestead in Florida. How it works the advantages of it and then how you could get more detailed information on the property taxes if you have any questions. I’m to go over all this in this short video.
People are very confused when they’re moving to Florida. They’ve never been here and don’t understand homestead of us. Don’t understand property taxes. So let me talk a little bit about our homestead law and it’s a lot different than other states. I’ve lived in California where they have the homestead. I’ve lived in Texas where they’ve had the homestead and it’s so much better in Florida.
So let me go backward from 3 to 2 to 1. The number 3 benefit of having homestead is the $50,000 exemption. Let me give you an example and how the taxes work out here. Let’s say you’re buying a home for once to say $300,000 and you witness a new home or it could be a pre-owned home and you’re looking at it. You’re trying to figure out what your property taxes are. The best thing to do is not look at what they are right now. So someone’s living in it that’s what their property taxes are and I’m going to explain a little bit more this a little later.
If you don’t want to pay any attention to theirs so you buy the home for 300,000 the best thing to do is the figure they’re going to assess you 85%. They’re going to assess you $250,000 for the home. Now it may even be more like in my cases it’s lower on many of my properties. Anyhow you’ll look at 255 and then you’ll want to take the $50,000 homestead exemption off of that. You’re basically a tax base of $255,000 then depending on what can you live in and what their millage rate is. When I say millage rate so example, Hillsborough County in Florida. The millage rates about 21. So 21 would about two point one percent. If you have a two point one percent. If you have $205,000 dollar estimate you take 2.1% that’s your taxes.
Now if you have CDD fees on top of that you’re going to have to add those in. Now keep in mind CDD Fees are included in the property tax bill. Let me repeat this because there’s a lot of confusion out there. CDD Fees which stands for Community Development District fees are included in the property tax bill. A video on CDD fees. If you’re not really sure what they are you definitely want to watch this video because pretty much all new and newer homes have them. You could watch it up here but they are included in the property tax bill. So you just need to get an estimate on what they’re going to be.
The second thing that’s really nice about our homestead law out here is that creditors can’t go after your primary residence. If something happens and you have a lawsuit and not an attorney so unique legal advice but if that does happen, creditors can’t go after your primary residence if its homestead hence years ago OJ Simpson moved to Florida why’d he moved to Florida his home protected. Anyhow, at least that’s why I think he moved to Florida. So that’s the second thing.
The number one thing that’s probably the biggest advantage is they cannot tax you over 3% of your assessed value. So if your home is worth let’s say $300,000 and you buy it and that the home prices are continuing to go up they can’t assess it for more than 3%. That’s why you never want to use what someone else’s tax base is because if their home is homesteaded and they’ve owned they’ve lived in it for many years their tax base is going to probably be very low. See it didn’t work like this other states I lived in but it’s a huge benefit for women in Florida.
Now if you want to get more information on the taxes you just need to look at the tax bill. It’s public record. I’m going to give you an example just in Hillsborough County you go to Hills tax org you do a search for the property. You put the address in there and then you just take the most recent bill and it will be in a PDF format. You open it up and you could look at it’s going to say what all the different taxes are. So it’s going to say what the school taxes are and what percentage and what’s the dollar amount then it’s going to give the phone number if you want to call someone about it and what this is really helpful for is when you’re looking at CDD Fees. If you want to get more information and you’re in a community that has CDD fee when you open it up. It will usually say calm Devon it will have the phone number and then you can just simply call the phone number talk to them.
Ask them what’s all in the CC you know what type of bond do they have in there? How long is the bond going to last? Is it 20-year bond? 30-year bond? When was it taken out? What else is in there like maintenance or if it’s a homeowners association dues that are in there. You might want to see if that’s in low homeowners association dues. Ask them if some of that’s wrapped into the CDDP. Get an idea but that’s where you go and get it.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to give me a call (813-317-4009). If you like this video give ma thumbs up or leave a comment below. I appreciate it. I wish you the best of luck and I hope this helps you. Have a great day. Click here for more educational real estate videos.
