Property Appraiser
Recently, I’ve developed a new habit. It reflects my natural curiosity–my need to know. I look up people I know on the property appraiser’s website. If they own a home or condo and I know their last names, I look them up.
This might not seem interesting to most, but I like knowing how much someone paid for their home. Before I learned that I could just look it up, I used to wonder. It’s not something that’s considered polite to ask, especially if you don’t know the person that well. I can speculate but speculation isn’t as good as hard fact.
Now I can go to someone’s house for dinner, already knowing that they paid under $100,000 for their home 5 years ago and it’s almost tripled in value since. I know the home’s square footage, age, composition, and what work they’ve had done (if they’ve gotten the proper permits). It takes every ounce of self control not to tell them I know.
The most shocking thing about my new found knowledge is knowing what people pay in taxes. Some people pay as much as I earn in a year in taxes! Is that a reflection of how little I earn or how high taxes are?
On Monday we went to a friend’s house for dinner. We’d never been to their house before so my husband was supposed to call them to get their address. I had him call as a courtesy. But we didn’t really need their address; I’d already looked them up on the property appraiser website.
