Real estate taxes as percentage of gross rents

[Marc Santos]

Looking to get some nationwide perspective. I'm in the Providence, RI market and feel as though our property taxes are significantly higher than the national average. I'm dealing with larger multi family buildings (6 or more units) which Providence classifies as "commercial." I thought it might be a good exercise to measure annual real estate tax as a percentage of annual gross rents. For example, I pay $9000 per year for taxes and my annual gross rents (before adjusting for vacancy and other losses) is $50,000. My percentage of taxes when measured against gross rents is $9,000/$50,000 or 18%. Let me know what you're seeing and if you know of any data which assesses this nationally. I'd like to use this data to contest tax rates with the city. Thank you.