The 5 Best Things About COVID-19 For Long Island Property Owners

Blog March 19, 2020 By Admin
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We’ve heard all the bad news about the coronavirus. Here are some good things that could come out of it, especially for Long Island real estate owners and their property taxes.

  1. Schools Are Forced To Change

It might be a big change personally if you haven’t already adapted to remote work and you have kids who are now at home all day. However, school taxes make up the bulk of our property taxes. Schools have long been a huge drain on our finances and economy, and the futures of our children. This is forcing them to change and operate more efficiently. If we can sell off all of these school properties, they can become housing and generate more property tax income and spread our burden across more people.

2. Retail Properties Can Be Converted To Housing

We’ve known we’ve had way too much retail for a very long time. This is just speeding up the change and correction. Malls and stores and more are being closed. Many will never reopen.

If we change these to housing, it will provide more access to housing, help bring down housing costs, create more affordable housing, and spread the tax burden further.

3. Property Tax Rebates

There has been talk about giving individuals and households a direct bailout from the government. That’s a really hard thing to do in reality. The easiest way would be to simply give property owners rebate checks. At least a full year of their property taxes. That may not happen, but they should.

4. Financial Breaks 

There’s a good chance you can get a few months break on your mortgage payments, car loans, and credit cards right now. You probably aren’t spending a lot of money on gas or travel. Use that cash to catch up on your property taxes.

5. Property Values Are Going Down

This is especially true in New York. Those multi-million dollar NYC condos are probably worth less than a roll of toilet paper today. There’s a good chance property values could dive 70% before this is over. That should reduce your property tax assessments and bills. Just realize that until then you still need to challenge your property taxes and refuse to over pay. We can help with that.