Did you forget this massive expense when house hunting?

I used to binge House Hunters.

How do you not? Reality TV that you can relate to – complete with fighting spouses and unrealistic demands. Is it all fake? I don’t care.

But one thing they definitely get wrong – and most real estate websites and MLS searches get wrong – is the price range. Sure your budget is between 600-750k. But guess what you don’t hear about until later in process?

Taxes.

We don’t need your stinking taxes

For some reason, the topic of taxes only comes up after people view homes. It’s not really part of their discovery process and ultimately price range. But depending on where you live that could get expensive. Below we compared three hypothetical homes with our trusty calculator.

89 Grand street is a brand new build while 15 Elm and 60 John are both older homes.

What do we see?

60 John – with the highest price of $775K – actually has a lower monthly and annual payment than 89 Grand. All because of taxes. If you had your search restricted to less than $750K, you would have missed this house.

So next time you do a home search be sure to get the tax info up front. And want to compare homes like above? Here is a link to download our calculator.