Tax appeals on new investment property

[Karen Elizabeth Virgilio]

Hi all!

My wife and I are just starting out with our real estate investment venture, looking to purchase our first 2-3 unit in Chicago. We have found several properties over the past few months that fit our criteria pretty well initially, and then are sunken with very high taxes. In the 8-10k range.

We are not looking for the highest cash flow we can get, especially to start, but these places that would work otherwise are then passed on due to the high taxes. So, moving forward, I am curious of the likely hood that we would be able to appeal the property taxes if we were to purchase one of these. Is this a strategy we could use to go after listings with high property taxes that most people will avoid? Or is that too much of a risk to take not knowing what we could do about the taxes?

Again, we are currently looking at properties in Chicago, mainly North / Northwest side where taxes aren't generally that high.

Thanks for any input!

[Mark Ainley]

@Karen Elizabeth Virgilio There is great power in understanding how the taxes work and where you have the ability to contest them or not.  You can always contest taxes but you dont always get a reduction.  I will send you a message for a podcast we recently did with one of Chicago's top tax contesting firms.  Keep in mind tax contesting lawyers take a percentage of savings not an hourly rate so makes sense to utilize.  You can contest taxes on your own with no cost other then your time but would advise you dont for the same reasons you dont change your own car brakes or replace your own roof.