I'm new to the forums, but I have been reading the MMM website for over a year now. My question relates to property taxes and whether it makes sense to buy a house closer to work with higher property taxes or further away to save money.
A little background: my wife and I are currently living at my parent's house to save up money for our own house. We have no consumer debt, relatively little student loan debt, and a 0% interest car loan with 4 years left (I know, not the best decision to buy a new car, but at least we're not paying interest). My wife works, and I am currently a PhD student. I'm studying engineering, and thankfully all my tuition is covered by the department,so I will not leave school with any additional loans. Additionally, I get a fairly decent stipend for my research work. We're looking to buy a house in the DC Metro area (Prince Georges County), and unfortunately property taxes are ridiculous ($4000-$5000/year) in this area. Specifically, we're looking at small single family homes or townhomes. We figure now is a good time to buy because of interest rates, and the cost of houses being so low, but I just don't know if we should look elsewhere for lower property taxes. We want to be close enough to my school so that I can just ride the bus or bike and my wife can ride the metro, so we're trying to weigh the advantages of different scenarios.
Does anyone have any advice? Am I overthinking the property taxes?