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Property taxes vary significantly across the nation’s 50 largest metros. How much homeowners pay in property taxes largely depends on where they live and what their home is worth.
For example, homeowners in Birmingham, Ala., pay about $7,700 less than their counterparts in the New York metro area—the difference between the city where owners pay the least and highest amounts in the nation, according to a new study from LendingTree.
Birmingham is the only metro where median property taxes are less than $1,000 a year, the study shows.
On the other hand, in New York, San Jose, Calif., and San Francisco, property taxes are among the highest in the country, at $8,602 in New York, $7,471 in San Jose, and $6,508 in San Francisco, according to the study.
For homeowners who are overburdened by property taxes or who believe they’re paying too much, they can challenge the assessment, says Jacob Channel, LendingTree’s senior economic analyst and the report’s author. “While this doesn’t guarantee that your bill will go down, it can help shed some light on why the government is saying you owe what you do,” he says. “And, in the best-case scenario, you could end up paying less in taxes.”