Does anyone think that Peoria or Peoria county is causing too ma

@tntrecycling :
Apartments are the 1st steps towards home ownership. People moving to Peoria for jobs need a place to live, save up money, then look to buying or building a house. Or if Peoria is just a stop in their career, then apartments or lofts would be preferable.When my wife and I got married in 1984, I moved into her apartment in Pekin. When I got 1st got hired at PCCEO (almost 40 years ago now!), we moved, rented a house in North Pekin with 2 bedrooms as we were expecting our 1st daughter.
5 years later, we bought the 3 bedroom house in Marquette Heights where we still live, about 35 years now.

And just to add , Peoria's largest employer (OSF) is a training hospital. So most of those folks aren't here for very long before moving on.

@tntrecycling : So you're not a fan of the warehouse district either? What extra taxes are we talking about that affects that area specifically?

@MadScientist :
The thing is that I could afford to make payments, pay property taxes, and keep the house and property in good shape all those years. Somewhere down the line, some people can't afford 1, 2, or all 3 of those and the property goes to hell.

The increases in property taxes on my former residence and my current residence have been entirely due to increases in home valuations. Of course people are complaining... they did nothing... but the houses around them here in Springfield have more than doubled in value. Both the City of Springfield and Peoria have kept their levies flat. So have the schools. What that means... is if you are experiencing an increase, someone else is not.The same problem is impacting insurance rates... surging home valuations, surging material and labor costs, the uncertainty of tariffs and labor supply (immigrants) have all resulted in significant increases in costs to build and maintain homes... so duh... insurance follows. That's be fore the unusual weather situation Illinois has been experiencing the last few years.I belief most every county in Illinois allows seniors to freeze their tax rates. This protects them from surging home valuations. The are disability freezes too. Seeing as that accounts for most fixed income folks, the argument that that increases in property taxes hurts fixed income folks doesn't wash.

@PeoriaIllinoisan : No, I`m not a fan of people living on top of each other. I don't want to hear my neighbors or smell them daily.

tntrecycling : You didn't answer what the special tax burden is that you mentioned in the warehouse district. Just because you don't like apartment living doesn't mean they're not popular with many people (obviously).

@Mahkno :
I think PSD150 raised ... their property tax levy in 2024 to an estimated $77.8 million, which was a roughly 3% increase over the 2023 extension.

@Mahkno : It applies to people 65 and older who bring in less than $65k per year. It freezes the EAV, but property taxes can still increase if the government increases the tax rate, which they generally always do to maintain their budget when home values decrease which causes reduction in property tax collected.The freeze is really only useful in situations where property values are rising and the amount of taxes people are paying is increasing as well, assuming the government isn't compensating by lowering taxes. The freeze then allows the senior citizen to freeze the EAV of their home and prevent the taxes from going up along with their neighbors. If the government compensates by lowering taxes, then the senior citizen will actually see their property tax amount go down!In Peoria where the taxes are some of the highest in the country, it's a slow race to the bottom to try to get your property value reduced so the property tax will go down with it. The government then compensates by raising the taxes to maintain the same amount of revenue. The senior citizen property tax freeze doesn't help in this situation.As I mentioned before, in theory in an extreme case the property tax burden could become so high that property values go to near zero, and are sold for $1 for the same reason time shares are sold for $1. Could Peoria actually collapse economically? It's an interesting thought.

@MadScientist :
We have this in Tazewell County, with the Senior Homestead exemption or act. But generally you have to fill out a simple form once a year.

' government increases the tax rate,"This right here is the great misconception of how property taxes work. It is routinely abused by those who have agendas with regards to taxes.The taxing authorities issue a levy... this is a gross dollar amount. The Peoria County assessor takes an assessment of the property values for the entire county. The assessor categorizes them; business, ag, residential... Then that levy is parceled out based on the weight of your valuation vis a vis the whole and everyone else. Then and only then do you have a percentage... the percentage property tax rate is a derivative number... and somewhat meaningless.It is entirely possible for a levy to be flat, unchanged, and for the percentage to go down. This can happen if there is a broad increase in home values. It is also entirely possible with a flat levy, for the percentage to go up, if there is a broad decline in home valuations. Your own individual assessment, taxed amount, and the derived percentage, depend entirely on what the levy is and by the valuation of your property and most critically those of others around you. The dollar amount could remain the same whilst the percentage does not. Likewise the opposite can happen. The levy can go up and your percentage can go down. There are three independently moving components; the levy as a gross dollar amount, your home valuation based on comps, and the value of everyone else's property.The percentage doesn't mean jack **** really. When people point out that Illinois has the highest property tax percentage rate.... what they are leaving out are the broad declines in property valuation that are occurring, primarily in rural counties, as people are moving away. It is all very uneven. I live in a neighborhood that has seen property values soar. On the east side of Springfield, they have been flat or declined. So my dollar amount in property taxes, paid in 2026, jumped +8%... that is looking back 2-5 years. My home purchase, and others around me, has not hit the assessments yet.

" what they are leaving out are the broad declines in property valuation that are occurring, primarily in rural counties, as people are moving away."Those private equity firms that are scrambling to build AI data centers know this...

The representative of private equity firm trying to put a data center in Christian County, near Taylorville Illinois... openly admitted that he would not want to live next to or near a data center. Yet somehow... he thinks the people of Christian County are desperate enough... low enough.... that they should accept their offer to build this campus in their County.

@Mahkno : So it is called a levy which changes automatically without any change in law. The government demands a certain amount of money from all the property taxes due to their budget, and the levy is adjusted until said amount of money is extracted from the property taxes. It is still the government deciding how much money to spend.The whole system of taxing real estate based on its market value may not be optimal in all situations. I question the whole method. One of the big things that happens is people deliberately make their property less valuable to make their taxes go down. If they taxed property owners a dollar amount based on lot size regardless of what is built on it or what it is used for it would create a totally different system.

@MadScientist : Again... no.... the levy is a specific line item in the budget that they submit to the County Assessor. It does not change automatically... it is expressly passed by the City Council as part of its budget.