Milwaukee Co. vs. Waukesha Co. Property Taxes

Lots of people living in SE Wisconsin know that the property taxes in Milwaukee County are higher than those of Waukesha County. Those that are looking to move here from another state often ask to see listings in Waukesha County based solely on the idea that the property taxes are more “reasonable” there. People moving to this area aren’t alone in this ideology. Many people that live in Milwaukee County often want to move to Waukesha County to stop paying what they say are high property taxes. Here is the thing, property taxes are only one part of the equation to consider when buying a home. look at the over-all cost of home ownership and then maybe you won’t be so stuck on one county over the other. Let me give you a few examples:

I was looking at my tax bill compared to a home in New Berlin that had a similar “fair market value” based on the assessment. The homes are of similar square footage and lot size. The home in New Berlin had a tax bill that was about $1000 more than mine. Sure, that’s an $83 per month difference. But is the overall cost of home ownership that different? Lets look a little deeper.

For starters Water and Sewer charges in Waukesha County are a lot higher than that of Milwaukee County. I was talking to a friend of mine that lives in Muskego. He told me that when he moved from the City of Milwaukee to the City of Muskego that his water bill was double what he had been paying. He figures that he pays about $250.00 per quarter for these charges. My charges for 2 adults and a child are about $85.00 per quarter. So lets make the math simple and say that the annual cost for water and sewer in Milwaukee County is $500 verses $1000 for Waukesha County. Now we are down to a $500.00 per year difference. Here is the real kicker, Waukesha County has water issues that are not going away any time soon. The radium level in the water is higher than permitted by the Federal Government. Maybe you want to start buying bottled water for drinking and cooking with? How much will that cost? The solutions that will probably be put in place over the next years to take care of radium will definitely make water a more and more expensive item in the future for residents of Waukesha County.

Next factor in that Greenfield has a full time fire department and New Berlin operates mostly by paid volunteers. What is that worth? Well, I can tell you it makes the taxes in Greenfield higher. My guess is that in the next few years that New Berlin will phase in a full time fire department. When this happens guess what will happen to the property taxes?

The last point that I want to make is with the refuse and recycling collection. In Greenfield refuse and recycling are a line item on the tax bill. Last year the bill was under $140 for my family. The New Berlin website states: “New Berlin residents are required to contract with one of the licensed trash haulers for garbage pickup.” So I went ahead and called up the 2 providers listed and found out that refuse and recycling pick-up costs ranged from $182 per year to $282 per year depending on what services you wanted, and the amount of trash you were needing to dispose of. So this may account for another $40-$140 in discrepancy.

All in all there is no “huge” savings gain by living in Waukesha County. Worse yet the potential for a higher cost of living in Waukesha County is great. The most important thing to focus on when considering a home purchase is: find a home you love, in a neighborhood you want to live in. Once you have found a home, do your “due diligence” and find out what unique community factors will be affecting your cost of living. (What referendums have been on the last few ballots might be a good place to start) In the end it will pretty much all balance out. Remember you get what you pay for. In this case I just don’t see that one can choose one county over the other based on property taxes alone.