{"id":275722,"date":"2026-08-31T11:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/275722\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:56:09","slug":"as-property-taxes-rise-some-allegheny-county-owners-consider-selling-butler-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/275722\/","title":{"rendered":"As property taxes rise, some Allegheny County owners consider selling \u2013 Butler Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

(The Center Square) \u2014 Ed Benz has owned houses in Allegheny County since 1999, but recent tax increases are eating into his profits so much he might not be able to keep them.<\/p>\n

Last year, officials in the Western Pennsylvania county raised its property tax rate by 36%, to 6.43 mills from 4.73 mills, the first hike in more than a decade. This upcoming school year more than two dozen<\/a> of the county\u2019s<\/a> 42 suburban school districts are poised to raise the property tax rate an additional 1-5%.<\/p>\n

The founder and owner of MCF Group, a property-management firm, Benz, a 61-year-old native, owns 40 properties, all but one of which are single-family houses worth $100,000 to $250,000. He estimates those hikes have sliced his profits by 3%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they keep up these increases, I may be forced to exit the business,\u201d Benz told The Center Square.<\/p>\n

Allegheny County, the state\u2019s second most populous, with 1.2 million residents, has not reassessed property values since 2012.<\/p>\n

To adjust for property values increasing since the county\u2019s last tax reassessment, when owners appeal their assessments, the county uses a legal formula known as the common level ratio. In 2013, the ratio was 100%. Now it’s 50.14%. That means a house with a market value of $200,000 could have an assessed value of $100,000 for purposes of an assessment appeal.<\/p>\n

Rising costs<\/p>\n

School district and municipal officials said the falling common level ratio has increased the number and effect of assessment appeals, reducing the property tax base. Property tax increases, they say, are necessary to address rising healthcare and energy costs as well as special education and staff salaries.<\/p>\n

According to a report from<\/a> the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, the three most cited expenses were charter school tuition, special education and health insurance.<\/p>\n

The increases range from a hike of 0.329 mills in Riverview to 1.429 in East Allegheny. One mill is a dollar of tax per $1,000 assessed value. For a house worth $250,000, an increase of one mill would mean an additional $250 a year in taxes.<\/p>\n

For some owners, those added costs are making it harder to afford their properties.<\/p>\n

Mark Schinzel, a local Realtor and CEO of We-Buy-Property.net, a property investment firm, said he has seen more people selling property because of tax increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see more financial problems,\u201d Schinzel said in an interview. \u201cWhen I started in this business in 2018, we\u2019d hear from a property owner say, \u2018I\u2019m selling because I\u2019m getting divorced or a loved one passed.\u2019 Now it\u2019s, \u2018I can\u2019t afford this house.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Some residents said that county officials should cut spending rather than raise taxes.<\/p>\n

On June 8, at a planning meeting of the Pine-Richland School District, local resident Kathleen Ravotti urged officials to pay more attention to taxpayers, a complaint she echoed in a brief interview with The Center Square.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese taxes are ridiculous,\u201d she said. \u201cOfficials need to rightsize the district instead of paying for new programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaints are less about tax hikes scheduled to take effect this school year than the cumulative weight of previous property tax increases and rising living costs.<\/p>\n

Hidden costs<\/p>\n

Despite their frustration, homeowners and landlords have not coalesced into or galvanized opposition to the property tax hikes.<\/p>\n

Benz is familiar with the problem. He is also president of the Active Community of Real Estate Entrepreneurs of Pittsburgh, an association for local landlords, property managers, and investors.<\/p>\n

\u201c Some people,\u201d he said, \u201cdon\u2019t want to cross the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, residents interviewed by The Center Square described quietly absorbing the higher costs, delaying repairs, considering selling property or passing expenses on to renters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen property taxes go up, they\u2019re not raising rates just on homeowners but renters, too,\u201d Benz said. \u201cLandlords pass on their costs to renters.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article is Part 2 of a two-part series on property tax reassessments in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2014 Ed Benz has owned houses in Allegheny County since 1999, but recent tax increases…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3035,3027,3022,3042,3048,3051,1610,3030,3028,31,3029,3034,3025,3047,3041,3024,3045,3033,3023,3036,182,3049,3039,139,3026,28,3040,73,75,74,39,3031,3044,3043,3032,3050,3038,3037,3046],"class_list":["post-275722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bruin","tag-butler","tag-butler-eagle","tag-cabot","tag-callery","tag-cherry-valley","tag-community-news","tag-connoquenessing","tag-cranberry","tag-crime","tag-east-butler","tag-eau-claire","tag-education-news","tag-evans-city","tag-fairview","tag-government-news","tag-harmony","tag-harrisville","tag-high-school-sports-news","tag-karns-city","tag-local-news","tag-mars","tag-mount-chesnut","tag-news","tag-obituaries","tag-pennsylvania","tag-petrolia","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-political-news","tag-portersville","tag-sarver","tag-saxonburg","tag-slippery-rock","tag-valencia","tag-west-liberty","tag-west-sunbury","tag-zelienople"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}