Americans paid nearly $300 billion in property taxes in 2016 – but as with everything in real estate, it’s all about location. Yet those taxes don’t just tell a story about local and regional housing markets – they also show how the country is changing.

Americans are fleeing areas with higher property taxes, making housing markets and local finances more stagnant in those areas. And even an influx of younger people into the urban areas that anchor those areas, like the Northeast and Midwest, isn’t enough to offset the exodus to low-tax areas like the Southeast and West.

A report out this week from Attom Data illustrates the stark difference between the highest tax burdens and the lowest. Effective tax rates range from 0.32% in Hawaii to 2.31% in New Jersey.

In dollar amounts, that meant an average property tax bill of $776 in Alabama in 2016 to nearly that much every month for the average New Jersey homeowner. The annual tax bill there is $8,477.

According to Daren Blomquist, vice president with Attom Data, those discrepancies aren’t just important for homeowners considering […]