LOL! If you want the gossip, hear what your kids are really doing, even what your own friends are really up to–be the driver of a minivan.
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Yup—20 years of mini-vanning was fun but now my Prius Prime feels like a sports car in comparison. I’m happy with it but hope our 2nd car can hold >4 people comfortably because my car certainly can’t. H’s ancient Volvo holds 5 but the 5th person is a big uncomfortable the kids have let us know.
If you want a three row vehicle, a van is the main option if you want people to be able to get in and out of the third row easily and be comfortable there.
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Thanks. Yes, we have had a van for 30 years and are very familiar with them. My bil bought a 3 row suv—worst possible seating in 3rd row unless you are 5 years old or younger. It was truly awful and we only rode it 30 minutes to stadium & 30 minutes back.
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We had a Chevy Traverse that had 2 captain chairs in the middle row. So it wasn’t horrible getting to the 3rd row. Of course I never cared that much because I never rode back there. Only kids ever did. It was a workhorse though and lasted 13 years. We were trying to make it last until move in for D23 but alas the repairs started to get pricey. Thankfully D23 is bringing a car with so we have room for her stuff. Because we did not buy a big SUV to replace it. We got an Equinox. Much cheaper and better gas mileage.
LOL - I’m still driving that same 2006 Odyssey. For a while now I’ve been joking, “any month now it is going to flip past 100,000 miles”. Some time since my last gas fill up it happened. Of course these days I am the main driver, around town. No seats in it for past few years - it’s my alternative pickup truck…. use it for errands, taking branches to waste diversion etc.
The Jones’ will have to hatch a long term plan if they want to keep up with my record 
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I’m not sure which thread this article belongs in. 
But I wonder if their neighbors wonder how these kids are affording this home. Even if his parents “chipped in a portion of the down payment”. Gifted
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From one of the listings… “The asking price was $735,000, with about $17,000 a year in taxes.”
That much in taxes? A house like this would only be $7-8k a year in taxes here, school levies and whatnot.
Hey, around where we live a $500K house can be $14-15k/yr in taxes easily. $700-800k houses closer to $20-24k/yr in taxes depending on age of home and exemptions homeowner can claim.
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It’s shocking that a paralegal and a teacher can even afford the taxes and upkeep on this home.
The taxes are more than our house payment. And was the tax amount before or after it was going to be reassessed once the sale went through.
We lived in a home that age. There was a lot of maintenance.
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My D years ago was in the vicinity looking for property back in 2010. And I’d find something MUCH more reasonable–like 150-200K for a home. And the taxes were 10K a year off the bat with a bunch of extra taxes/fees added in. No way!
Taxes on our home (assessed about 350k) are over 7000/yr. I’m always amazed on how low WA property taxes are. Sales taxes on the other hand…
I just paid the first half of our property tax bill. It was about $4000. House is valued at somewhere over $500,000. But we have no mortgage anymore. And we built this house in 1995 for under $180,000…on two acres of land. We got really lucky.
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This is where the “save our homes” bills make a huge difference.
Our property taxes on houses worth $1mm+ are under $4k/yr with lots to gnashing of teeth at how high taxes are getting. We also have significant state income taxes.
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What do you mean?
Property taxes in our state vary widely. For a house that has a taxable value of $250,000 (which is estimated at one half the market value), my township is $8,000/year. My D’s township is $9,700. Her friends bought a house a couple towns over from her, and the property taxes would be $12,200 for a $250k assessed value.
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Probably means stuff similar to Proposition 13 in California, which limits the increase in assessed value of houses for property tax purposes as well as property tax rates. Proposition 13 in California created significant distortions in the housing market, to the advantage of incumbent homeowners over new entrants. It also applies to commercial real estate, distorting that market in favor of incumbent owners over new entrants. The latter also has a loophole in that if the commercial real estate is owned by a partnership where no owner of the partnership has at least a 50% stake, transfers of the stakes in the owning partnership do not trigger a reassessment.
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I live in California with prop 13 limiting property taxes. My home would sell for $1.2 million and is smaller than most of your homes, but is near the beach and our property taxes are$3,400 a year.
In a year, they’re going down to one income. Hope she’s not borrowing for law school! Can’t imagine that kind of mortgage debt (even with parental help) in a teacher’s salary.
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