How to find the property tax rate for each county?

Property tax rate plays an important role in real estate investment. A high property tax rate (e.g., about 3% rate in Taxes) often makes its housing market difficult to increase a lot. As a result, the appreciation value of real estate investment is limited. On the other hand, high property tax rate will eat your monthly case flow significantly. If you get neither good cash flow nor good appreciation, but you want to do real estate investment in that area? A low property tax rate area will thus be more attractive. The appreciation can be better, and the cash flow is also good.

On the other hand, the house price of a high property tax rate area is more stable, no matter in good or bad years. The house price of a low property tax rate may fluctuate a lot, making a roller coaster experience, and real estate investors may get burned.

To find the property tax rate for an area such as county, you can use website topcounty.com. It shows not only the property tax rate, but also population, population distribution, median home price, median household income and a lot more information about each county. Very useful for real estate investment study.

How to choose where to invest in real estate (1)

Real estate investment is the many people's favorite, but how to find a good area to invest in is an important decision. A booming city house will be of great appreciation potential, and a decline of the city (such as Detroit) seems to be a nightmare for real estate investors. How to find a good place for investment? The most common is the word of mouth, but in fact also can DIY. For most initial study, I would use the topmetroarea.com. This website allows users to easily select ideal metro areas. The selection criteria included the number of population, population growth, GDP, GDP growth, withunemployment rate, the value of the house, the house growth, foreclosure rate, delinquency changes, etc., as shown in the following figure. With these measures, it is not difficult find ideal metro areas for real estate investment.

A very easy to use school locator service

For home buyers, it is often true that the top 3 factors are: school, school and school, because good schools mean good neighborhood and good resale value.

However, it is not often easy to locate the attending schools for a give property address. Each school district has its own way to lookup. Sometimes, we have to make several phone calls and wait a long time for just one address. But then, I find out this school locator service online (schoolandhousing.com), its service is very easy to use: Just input your address and click "Go". I have recommended this website for every client I served, and they all like it very much.

Real Estate Calculator Suite for Investors

Real estate investment is also a big financial decision. I would like to recommend several very useful online free calculators, which I always recommend to my clients to use. 

1. Cash Flow and ROI Calculator for Real Estate Investors

For real estate investors, this calculator will help you figure out monthly cash flow and annual capital return on your investment properties.

2. Offer Price Calculator for Real Estate Investors

Do not know what is the best purchase price for an investment property, this calculator will help you find the offer price by your expected capital return.

Real Estate Calculator Suite for Home Buyers

Purchasing home is a big financial decision and it is important to make your decision wisely, especially for first-time home buyers. I would like to recommend several very useful online free calculators, which I always recommend to my clients to use. 

 1. Living Expense Calculator

No matter if you are renting a house or owning a house, you can use this calculator to understand affordability level on housing cost and total expenses.

  2. Home Affordability Calculator

If you are thinking to buy a house and want to know mortgage payment, tax savings and if your income can comfortably afford it, this is the calculator you need.

 3. Buy vs Rent and Capital Gain Calculator for Home Buyers

For home buyers (owners), this calculator will help you figure out the capital gain (loss) your home generates over years. It can also help you to make decisions on buying or renting, and the best time to sell your home.