Blah blah blah…. Yonkers vants to suck your blood. They need your money to deliver services, therefore the Mayor Mike Spano has offered the rock or the hard place. Spano’s $1.1 billion city budget for 2016-17 includes a doubling of real estate transfer tax from 1.5% to 3% for home sellers. Co-ops and condos are exempt.
On the sale of a $440,000 home, the median price for a Yonkers house as of 04/21/16, that equates to a tax of $13,200 to the City of Yonkers, plus the $1,760 NYS transfer taxes equals $14,960 TAX! Sellers would pay, but to whom do you think they would pass these costs along? How long until you see the tax bump in prices for these homes?
The other alternative is to raise the tax cap past the state cap of 2%. Last Wednesday the Yonkers City Council voted 6-1 in favor of allowing the city to raise taxes above the 2% limit. Realtors are going vampire killer over both these proposals. Both would drive ownership out of the city and reduce revenue in the long term.
Call your mayor, call your city council, call Blade and ask him to slay this blood sucker that hurts Yonkers and Westchester. If you need to sell your house now…AskHollingsworth.
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