Cook County Real Estate Taxes and Christmas Shopping
I'm waiting to read an article that addresses the impact of Cook County real estate taxes being due in DECEMBER on holiday shopping. I think 12/3/07 is the latest due date in history...at least in my short memory. Isn't there a story here? Having to pay thousands of dollars to our county government some 20 days prior to Christmas IS impacting my holiday largess. Give me a call Mary.
posted by Peter @ 11:48 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
You raise an interesting question, and i share your curiosity to learn whether there is going to be any (adverse) impact on the retailers, but the more i think about it, the less i would expect to see any meaningful drop-off.
Two reasons:
first, the overwhelming majority of buyers i represent at home closings escrow for taxes with their lenders. none of them had to write a check to the county treasurer this week (or more accurately, since the bills were mailed out the first week of november) - they have been paying to their lenders every month instead and (presumably) those payments are already budgeted, along with their holiday gifting. OK - perhaps you get annual gifts from CITI or WAMU, but i dont, so i am excluding their gifting behaviours from my considerations....
second, the good folks who do not escrow for taxes (myself included) should all know that there is ALWAYS a second installment tax bill, due somewhere, sometime, in the fall. ya gotta assume that we all knew enough to be prepared to pay on september 1 (that pesky theoretical due date for 2nd installment bills) and that the 3 month delay translates to 3 more months of interest on our savings.
sure, some spendthrifts probably blew it. definately, some people were surprised by tax increases, but over all, i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that we probably won't see too much of an impact one way or the other.
by the way - a very nice blog. well done sir!
Thanks for the note Michael and welcome to the blogsphere. For the most part I agree with your points. I think the problem is the inability of people to save money even knowing that a second installment bill is certain.
Post a Comment
<< Home