Not trying to tell you how to spend your lotto wealth, but you should hire T.C. to fly you there in his helicopter. I mean, you're going to need a helipad somewhere on that 10 acres anyway.
I've seen the realtor show the house a couple of times. Was sort of to far away to make it out but pretty sure they had out of state plates. Thought it might look weird if I wandered over during the showing. Another thought was to fire off the Skyhawk when they were walking around the property. If its one of you guys feel free to walk across the yard and yell at me.
Where are you in WA that your taxes are so high? Sounds like you are describing Seattle or the East side, but the taxes aren't actually that high?
A wise man will know by all the burnouts in front of my place. Another perspective buyer was over there today
"Nothing says Welcome like the sound & the smoke show from a race car"..... Big bore rifle and shotgun rounds can also get people thinking, too.
Bellevue Here's an example of a house that's taxes aren't as expensive (but it was also evaluated under the $900K list price), but it was listed for $900K and went for over $400K more than that: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12014-NE-138th-Pl-Kirkland-WA-98034/48763016_zpid/ My previous house, which sold a few years ago, was 2700sf and taxes were around 10K/year then. And the house I'm currently renting is 1260sf. In 2022, the property taxes were $8600/yr, but they have dropped to 7200/yr for 2023.
We have a neighbor that is on the other side and behind the listed house that will sit out in his yard and pop off rounds for hours. I know he's responsible enough to have a back stop and shoot away from our houses. Guy across the street maybe no so much.
That is insane! Your taxes were as much as my mortgage payment when I still owed on my 2600sqft house on 3/4 acre lot. How can they justify that kind of tax burden?
Five years ago my brother sold the house that he bought from our mother in Newton, MA for $1,100,000. The buyer tore it down and replaced it with a modernistic house that looks like a free-standing Dentist's office. It is gorgeous inside, though. The sale price of the new house was $3.3 million. It is presently on the market for $3.7 million. I can't imagine what the property taxes are.
Grew up in Newton Mass. (1968-1993). Has been a playground for the progressive rich elites for decades. Frankly don’t have fond memories of the place.
I hung out in Newton Highlands (the Highlands), it was a bit more blue-collar then Waban, Nonantum, West Newton Hill, and the area surrounding the Brae Burn Country Club, which I think is Auburndale. For those who care, Newton is a city made up of 13 distinct Villages. One thing that makes Newton MA unique is that it had 12 railroad stations within it's borders. There was also one station named Lower Falls, that was on a branch of the Boston & Albany Railroad. Lower Falls spans the Newton-Wellesley border, but the actual Lower Falls railroad station was on the Wellesley side of the border. As you can see - I'm into railroads.
My neighbors, who are the second owners, just sold their 1290 sq ft bungalow with a finished basement for $540,000. On the market for one week. Original owner paid $225,000. 00 in 2006!! The same home in Toronto or Vancouver is easily a million bucks. My home is almost a mirror image, minus the developed basement. I have more invested in unseen benefits, such as extra insulation, piled foundation and 30 year shingles. There's also potential to create an open area at least 22' X 22' in the basement as I had one telepost replaced with a steel beam. Oh, yeah, my attached garage is one foot higher than standard spec, and 22' X 23.5' instead of the usual 20' X 20'. It's biggest garage on my bay.
Tom, when we built our barn in Medway, MA I did the same; it was 26 X 24 feet and clear span. I used two of what are correctly called open web steel joists, but everyone calls trusses, one foot apart down the center. I was determined to have eight feet of clearance floor to ceiling. Using a single truss to support the load that I wanted would have made the 26' truss too deep; with the smaller pair I had 8 feet 1/2 inches of clearance to the bottom of the truss. Obviously much more on either side of the trusses. BTW: Although basements are not an option here in SW Florida, when I was looking for our house in Medway MA, I told the real estate agent that I consider a finished basement a negative, because it will cost me time and money to make a proper basement out of it . I wanted my workshop to be in the basement.
People pay it? There's a lot of money out here. Some is from people buying for investments and others are people who have two family members working in tech. I took a look, and my old house jumped up to over $13K in taxes for 2022. It dropped back down a bit in 2023, but that's how things generally have gone here after interest rates were raised to offset inflation.
Just around the corner from where I'm living now, there was a tear-down at $850K. The house that replaced it was over 3000sf and went for over $3M.
Anybody buying a house in the Bellevue/eastside area could be considered crazy. From when the discussion about selling my last house happened in spring 2021 until it was listed (and sold with 9 offers) in November of 2021, what we assumed it would sell for vs what it sold for went up 40%. That was when rates were sub 3% and every house was getting multiple offers, the most competitive being cash or same-as-cash and everything went pending after the first weekend listed. I just sent this one to my realtor, because it only went for $202K over list which was 3X what it sold for 10 years ago. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/14212-119th-Ave-NE-Kirkland-WA-98034/48899774_zpid/