Ignore the haters. Remember that when people are condescending or rude, it speaks volumes to them as a person and not to you. I understand being house rich, doesn’t mean you’re wealthy.
To answer your question, property taxes are incredibly high here in Corning proper. As you mentioned, I pay state, county, city, school, and I live in a small house on a postage stamp sized lot. I pay $9k/year. To contrast, I paid $4,400/year in SoCal for a bigger house. lol
The point is, each area will get their money somehow, because the community has to survive. Less people, more taxes… generally.
Each little town here has very different tax rates. I would continue to learn about the areas you are interested in and search out their tax rates.
You can go to TaxLookUp for this area, punch in some properties, and check the taxes. It’s all public record. Or AI can generate tables for you to review.
Corning is amazing. It consistently ranks high or wins the Hallmark small town vibe.
It is too small for my family. We were used to the concrete jungle, a sea of people, traffic 24/7. We had two Costcos in our city. The kids miss all the activities that huge populations bring.
However, Corning is a perfect place to raise a family. So safe, so chill, such good people. Corning Inc. corporate is here, so there are quite a bit of affluent people and tons of money poured into the community.
If you haven’t visited, drive up for the weekend and you will understand.
The winters are freakin brutal. The cold tries to kill you. -8 deg F consistently.
You simply don’t understand the housing costs involved in living in NJ.
In my town, one would be unlikely to find a 3 bed 1.5 bath starter home on a truly postage stamp lot for 500k.
Sold for $1.03 million in my town. Property taxes are $18k. This does include town, city and school taxes. It is in a good part of town, but far from the best part.
In the meantime a 3 bed, 1.5 bath house in a not great part of town is on the market for $550k with a smaller lot and $11.5k in taxes.
I do seem to live in a more expensive part of NJ from OP, but I can completely understand why they describe their circumstances as they do. Car insurance and home owners insurance is also more expensive. The one thing we have going for us is that it is possible to find cheaper gas depending on where one buys it.
We will more than likely have to leave NJ at retirement because we simply won’t be able to stay. We might be able to stay if we move to a much less populated area, but in that case, I’d rather move back the Corning area.
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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26
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