Quote Originally Posted by jonthepain View Post

Bought a 3 br home with close to 3k sq ft under roof, on over 3 acres for $126k, a half hour from Raleigh, 20 min from Cary, Apex, RTP, RDU. Was paying $800/year prop tax when we first moved here. it's gone up to $1200 a year since then. lol.

also went from paying $6k a year in auto insurance to $700 yr.
that's gone up (mostly my fault plus teen driver) to around $2k.

Amazingly low figures, I bet you pat yourself on the back for making that choice to move there.
Once people eliminate the sky-high property taxes, they open themselves to all sorts of other financial options to invest in (IRAs, new businesses, etc)

Some people around here pay $900/month or more in property taxes, and we're talking about average houses.