# Taxes on your acreage/hobby farm



## Hidalgo13

I read that when you have a house in the country, it isn't true taxes are lower. That it's expensive because there is more land than people, so when the costs are divided, the individual pays more, than there's the fact that the more acres of land you have, the more it is of course. Is this very true, partly true, depends? So I'd like it if those you own land (it can be from a few acres to a thousand, in partly or fully rural areas) to share their experiences.

Basically:

How many acres of land do you own? 
Where are you situated? 
Approx. what you pay (if you feel comfortable sharing) 
(and if you have an idea) what would you pay if let's say, you had a house in town or in the city and just had a couple thousand square feet of land.

Thanks for quenching my curiosity.


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## Speed Racer

It depends on how the land is _zoned_ that determines taxes, not the amount of people. In what state you live also determines how much in taxes you pay. Agriculturally zoned areas historically pay less in taxes than those with city or town municipalities.

I have a 5 acre hobby farm in south central Virginia. My property taxes are less than $600.00 per year. However, that's for_ me _and my area. I have a friend who lives in New York state who pays massive amounts of property taxes every year for about the same amount of land.


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## iridehorses

When I lived in Bucks County, PA, I had a 10 acre farmette and when I moved to SC in 2001 my taxes were ~$4,500. Due to development in the county, I understand that taxes on the property are close to $10,000 now.

In Anderson county, SC, I have 25 acres, a 2,500 sq foot home, a large barn, a large block shed, a seperate garage/workshop, and a pavilion by the lake. We get a break on property taxes because we grow our own hay and have horses. Taxes last year were $890. Without the ag break we would be paying twice that.


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## Cacowgirl

Where I've owned property-it starts w/the initial purchase price, then improvments are added in, the amount of land owned, maybe an extra assesment for a well, school district, & whatever surcharges they can get away for the area. Then it will probably go up a bit every year also. If you have a mortgage, you have to have fire insurance, to protect the mortgage holder.


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## Faceman

Speed Racer is correct...taxes are not determined by the quantity of land.

Taxes are highest in cities and towns because they have to pay for more schools, traffic lights, streets and streetlights - there is far more infrastructure to pay for in a city than in the country.

Also, historically landowners are politically powerful, and as a result taxes on land are low...


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## CLaPorte432

Ha, we have 10 acres and our taxes are ~$5,500 a year. The house is about 2600 sq ft. I live in a nice "upper class" city in southwest Michigan and in my county, Schoolcraft (where I live) and Mattawan (next city over from me) have the highest property taxes. Many people don't move here because in the next towns over, you can get a cheaper house, more acreage and lower taxes compared to this place.

When we lived on 1.5 acres in the country (just 1 mile down the road from where we live now) our taxes were under $1000, but, that was 12+ years ago and before the new HS was built and the new town hall and this and that and that and this was added to our town. And out house was almost half the size at 1400 sq ft. 

Our taxes are crazy high!

My brother lives about 45 minutes south of me and his taxes are about $1500 a year for 2.5 acres in the country.


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## Hidalgo13

> It depends on how the land is _zoned_ that determines taxes, not the amount of people. In what state you live also determines how much in taxes you pay. Agriculturally zoned areas historically pay less in taxes than those with city or town municipalities.





> Speed Racer is correct...taxes are not determined by the quantity of land.
> ​


Thanks for the clarification.  I see how that makes more sense.


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## Hidalgo13

> Our taxes are crazy high!
> 
> 
> ​


You should see what my dad pays. :shock: He would be dying to pay so little for 10 acres (or even better, as much as Iridehorses). :wink: But then we live in the city and in a neighborhood that suddenly boomed 10 years ago. It used to be small and unknown, but know it's filled with people renovating and trying to sell their house for a million dollars. :shock: They're nice homes, but they exaggerate sometimes. They get away with it though because everybody seems to want to move here.


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## Joe4d

I have a 2200 sq foot house on 10 acres, mine are about 1k a year. No way I would live up north. Spend 10 times as much for nothing in return.


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## Clayton Taffy

CLaPorte432 said:


> Our taxes are crazy high!
> 
> .


Michigan taxes *are* crazy High,
Our family has a summer cottage on lake Michigan, no heat or AC 100+ years old, 200 feet of private beach, winter taxes $1875. Summer taxes $5545.

My grandfater bought the house in 1937 for $3000. and he thought it was highway robery.


My "farm" in MO has 57 acres, 3 acres residential for the house, 54 acres agricultural. Taxes are $2900 with $2200 going to the school.


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## CLaPorte432

Hidalgo13 said:


> You should see what my dad pays. :shock: He would be dying to pay so little for 10 acres (or even better, as much as Iridehorses). :wink: But then we live in the city and in a neighborhood that suddenly boomed 10 years ago. It used to be small and unknown, but know it's filled with people renovating and trying to sell their house for a million dollars. :shock: They're nice homes, but they exaggerate sometimes. They get away with it though because everybody seems to want to move here.


That's kinda what happened with our town. We used to be small, but in the past decade, seems like everyone wanted to move here! We do have a great school system but geesh! We only have a few "million dollar homes" but many are over $400,000. The market is crappy right now though so many of the homes are sitting empty.


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## Faceman

My ranch in Arkansas is in the country 65 miles from Little Rock in the Ozark foothills. The house is 1900 square feet, land is 80 acres with lots of improvements. Taxes are $650/year and I get a $300 homestead exemption, so I only pay $350/year. If the ranch were 15 miles from Little Rock in a metropolitan county its value would be much higher, the tax rates would be much higher, and I would be paying in the neighborhood of $4,000/year in taxes...far more than the commute costed me.

I have a 4,100 square foot home here in the country outside of Branson with 6 1/2 acres, and the taxes here are $1,250/year. If my house was 1/2 mile down the road (that's about 850 yards) across the county line of a Springfield suburban county, my taxes would be more than double what they are here...:shock:


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## FlyGap

A tip on property taxes...
Have some BIG loose dogs and an attack horse! 
Our farm was homesteaded in 1905, it remained the same until 1973 when a family purchased it and revamped our home. We purchased it in 2009 from a state rep who used it as a hunting lodge, we gutted the house, fixed up the fence and reclaimed the yard. I have a pretty good feeling that the County Assesors (sp) left it alone until this year when they got their records updated, politics!

Ugh. So I was working and looked out the window and saw a car sitting at the locked gate. The dogs were going at it doing their job! Still the car didn't leave so unfortunately I went out to investigate, Tax lady. If it would have been a man I would have told him to take a hike, but the lady was nice. Well I was duped, I penned the dogs and thought I'd be nice, maybe she'd go easy on me. ARGH!
She started commenting on how according to the records I've done this and that, and we had increased our yard acreage, higher value! Oh, look at all the nice rock on the house, records say only such and such % but it looks like more to me... I'll have to send out someone to measure. ARGH!!! 
This house hasn't been touched in over 40 years and you want to RAISE my taxes! Then she started talking about dogs and horror stories, then she told me how she was scared of horses when she saw mine, mentioned the horse barn she needed to see but she wasn't ABOUT to go out there because she'd been attacked once by a horse that was in some people's yard. The horse CLIMED on the porch to get at her, was biting and pawing at her and eventually drove her out of the yard. She had to pick up a wiffle bat to beat the horse away!!! Then she said that due to my scary and VERY protective dogs she'd have the rock measuring guys give me a call before they came out so I can put them up... HECK NO! You think I'm answering THAT call? He's gonna have a battle on his hands! And I'm shopping for an attack horse for the next time they come around, or at least let my horses in the yard to scare her off. We got BIG plans for this place, LOL!


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## Corporal

Understand that we live in "The Town That Time Forgot" ROFL!!
Can't give you specifics bc DH writes the checks! However, when we were considering moving our horses from where we kept them to a property with them in the backyard, we checked on taxes and insurance. In OUR case, the total of the two did not change. We paid less insurance and higher taxes in Champaign, IL (1/4 acre property). Now, we pay higher insurance and lower total taxes on 5 acres in Longview, IL.
Our place in 2009, one year after new fencing, including the ruts








We pay ~$2,500.00/year for our taxes. 
Our 5 acre property, which came with a 6 bedroom house, 4-car garage, a barn w/adjoining shelter/loft (500 bale capacity), tool shed, other outbuilding (single car size), was ~ $90K. It also had 4 separate fenced-in and gated pastures/turnouts.
We now have 5 areas with horse fencing, instead of the old cattle fencing.
We closed on October 31, 1999. Our zoning, THE most important thing to consider, is AG2, which enables us to keep livestock. At the time we bought our place, other local horse people were buying 20 acre, undeveloped properties in a horse-friendly development. The 20 acre lots with nothing on them were more expensive than my whole package. But other people probably didn't like our neighborhood, very rural, with many inexpensive homes, which bothers me NOT AT ALL. Funny, that, since I grew up in the expensive burbs of "Chicago-land!"


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