It’s a Good Year to Turn 65 in Ohio!
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007If you own a home in Ohio and you’re 65 (or turning 65 in 2007), it’s a good year for you. Ohio is expanding its eligibility for the Homestead exemption on your real estate taxes. This benefit, which was already in place but with certain income restrictions, has been expanded to allow all homeowners age 65 and older as of this year, as well as all surviving spouses that are 59 1/2 or older regardless of income.
The first $25,000 of a home’s value is no longer being taxed for these individuals. Let me just take a moment and say what a great way to help our seniors in this state. Many of these people are on fixed incomes and yet they face the same rising costs - like gasoline - that the rest of us do!
The Cincinnati Enquirer posted a nice article on this expanded tax benefit.
As the Enquirer article points out, if you qualify you won’t just automatically see the tax benefit next time you get the real estate tax bill in the mail. You must contact your local county auditor’s office to request the homestead exemption and you will have to fill out an application, which is simply so the auditor can keep track of how many people & properties qualify for this credit.
Hopefully we will see more relief coming in the way of real estate taxes to help make the cost of homeownership more affordable and therefore bring more buyers into the market. It’s not just about bringing more buyers into a market where there are a larger number of sellers. That would be a nice economic benefit for the state, but it also helps the local communities’ quality of life when people own their homes as residents take more pride in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, communities, and so forth.
As always, I welcome your feedback and comments…
