Three Pa. Counties Make List of Lowest Effective Tax Rates in 2021

Three Pennsylvania counties were recently named to the Top 10 U.S. Counties with Lowest Effective Property Tax Rates in 2021 list by ATTOM.

According to the report, Greene County, Blair County and Susquehanna County had some of the lowest effective tax rates in the country last year. Greene County had the lowest in the country at 0.04%, while Blair County’s was third at 0.09%. Susquehanna County boasted a tax rate of just 0.13% in 2021, making it the fifth lowest. Interestingly, despite these three counties offering such low tax rates, Pennsylvania had one of the highest effective property tax rates in the U.S. in 2021 at 1.37%, behind just Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont.

An earlier report found that property taxes across the U.S. in 2021 rose only 1.6% year over year, reaching $328 billion, up from$323 billion in 2020. Comparatively, tax rates grew 5.4% from 2019 to 2020. Additionally, the average tax on single-family homes in 2021 had the smallest percentage increase in five years, growing 1.8%  from $3,719 in 2020 to $3,785 in 2021. However, property taxes did rise higher than the national average in 74% of markets, making these Pennsylvania counties an anomaly.

Pittsburgh was also named as a major market with the largest decrease in average property taxes at 35.1%. However, Philadelphia had one of the highest effective property tax rates in cities with a population of 1 million or more at 1.6%.

The report found that home values rose faster than taxes across the U.S. and it’s expected property taxes may rise to meet the new home price median this year.