Thank you both. Your feedback helped me gain more knowledge to be able to research it better.
Here is what I learned.
There are a few ways to save on Property tax in our area; homestead, portability, and the Save our home cap which is 3%.
The same model homes as my rental have gone up 30% in market value. The people who still lived there and get homesteads also got the SOH cap of 1.7%, not sure why not the 3%. The homes that were not under homestead raised by 30% on assessed value as well. I looked up the sales in the area and the 30% increase and the $140,000 value seems about right. The homes in the last year sold for between $95,000 and $180,000.
At my homestead home, I also looked at all the sales and the value seems about right as well. But I didn't get the SOH cap or the portability savings because I guess I was unlucky when I bought it. If I had moved this year instead of last year, I would have had portability savings and cap savings on the other house. But there was no way to predict this, so I am not going to beat myself up over it. Also, I wouldn't have been lucky to have found this house at such a great price and the house is a rarity because it is the only one of its type that is less than 20 years old; mine is 10 years old, all others were last made in the 80's or older and are selling at the same price as mine and have less land.
The damage:
Rental home: $1200 to $2600
Primary home: $3600 to $3400
Increase of $1200! in property taxes.
WHAT CAN I DO TO LOWER MY PROPERTY TAXES?
RentalAs I was typing the above, I was trying to find out what else I can do to save on property taxes and came upon some new information. But I am having trouble understanding it.
It looks like according to Florida Statutes, rental properties are capped at a 10% increase. I didn't get this cap as I was assessed at a 30% increase. If anyone can understand if I qualify by what is written in the statutes, please help. I am just wondering if they didn't give me the cap because it became a rental in 2013 and the increase was in 2014 so maybe like the SOH cap, you don't get it the first year of the transition?
(3) Beginning in the year following the year the nonhomestead residential property becomes eligible for assessment pursuant to this section, the property shall be reassessed annually on January
1. Any change resulting from such reassessment may not exceed 10 percent of the assessed value of the property for the prior year.
http://propertytaxinflorida.com/2011/02/03/faqs-about-the-10-cap-on-commercial-property-assessments/http://www.leg.state.fl.us/STATUTES/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0100-0199/0193/Sections/0193.1555.htmlhttp://www.leg.state.fl.us/STATUTES/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0100-0199/0193/Sections/0193.1554.htmlPrimaryThe primary home is on land classified A-2. Which means that I can get an agricultural credit to lower the property taxes. I tried to do this the first year we moved in, but it took a while to get everything moving. I am thinking it will be faster to get and cheaper on our end to just rent the land out to cattlemen, but the going rate for that is $1 a year because people do it to save on their property taxes and don't care about getting any other profit from it. I also know of someone who has his own grass fed cattle raising business and saves over $1000 per year on his taxes.
I did the calculations and found that my taxes could go down by $1100 if I do the agricultural credit. Less about $300 if my husband continues to not want the cattle on the section where our house is. I can continue to try to change his mind by telling him he can save 10 hours a month on cutting the lawn, but his reasoning is that he doesn't want to walk into cow poop.