Appealing your property taxes is done because of inequities in market assessments, which incidentally runs 40-60 percent because of constant errors in blanket re-valuations that don’t get market values right.

The only way to fight your property taxes is to get rid of all municaple elected officials that live in the fantasyland of tax and spend. By electing a culture of conservative tax cutting, budget reducing legislatures.

Property tax re-valuations, contrary to many peoples opinion, do not increase the total amount of revenue raised by property taxes. Whatever the tax bill generated by the various schools, county government and municipal governments spending programs is divided up to spread the tax property tax burden based on the market value in the open market for your home. The municipality collects the amount of tax dollars for the expenses of local government based on their expenses. If the expenses go down, so do your taxes.

Property taxes take a beating supporting early retiring government employees. Senior employees are good for government providing they can do the job. With much of the government unionized in an archaic form, it is difficult to terminate or sideline an employee. Unlike a construction unions, where, if the worker is undesirable, the contracting firm can fire that employee. If that union member has issues that make him or her undesirable, that person simply does not get hired.

Reforming government unions should be high on the list of taxpayer reforms. A new competitive union needs to rise similar to that of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters for government employees. Benefits would accrue to the workers and hiring and firing decisions would originate with the government employer. Employees would be terminated as workplace changes dictate without penalty to the employer. Those hired would be on an as needed basis. Tenure would be replace by an apprentice program.

It is either that or some entrepreneur needs to step up to the plate and fashion a skilled workers program (similar to Manpower or other outside contracting agencies) to outsource jobs for all the categories of government workers. Naturally a mega agency would be too ambitious a start, but basic services could be outsourced.

Pressure needs to be put on government unions to reform or be replaced. Government is getting too expensive. Cost cutting reforms without cutting service has simple solutions but entail lots of political wrangling.

If employees work longer it give local, state or federal governments the benefit for having to pay fewer years of retirement. Considering many retire after 20-years service at 70% pay, the financial drain on taxpayers is enormous.

Taxpayers could get almost double the bang for the same dollar by insisting local, state or federal employees reach 65 years of age or work 40-years before they are eligible for retirement. That would put them on par with the majority of working Americans. There is no reason to treat government employees as a privileged class.

“The world is a dangerous place to live – not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” – Albert Einstein, scientist

Apply a property tax guide to any home or property: Get the right values and plug in the figures for your house. Don't get stuck on the learning curve scratching you head what to do next. Eliminate mistakes in property taxes and property tax appeals.

Mortgage rates have remaind stable due to the Federal Reserve not raising interest rates. The pre-owned single family home sales market is soft this seaon. Subprime lending and adjustable rate market find many battling foreclosure because of greed for home ownership and premium interest rates. Consumers with poor credit and financial flaws put themselves and their banks in risk.

Prices are going raising as the cost of living goes up. Property values shrinking, wages and the job market is still decent. The burden of local, state and the federal government are spending money like drunken sailors and it's only the American fighting attitude that keeps the working guy/gal able to continue. We all know that consumer inflation is far higher than the 2.1 percent official CPI inflation rate. Politicians are “cooking” the books. Eventually the markets will self-correct, but will we ever get spend-thrift politicians?

Further housing weakness will be triggered by a credit crunch was predicted by UCLA Anderson Forecast in a recent Investment Business Daily article.

UCLA Anderson Forecast predicted growth to rise and a fed funds rate to 4.5% from 5.25% and they see at least two, if not three, Fed rate cuts keeping economic growth this year in positive territory. Lower mortgage rates  are on the horizon.

With a 8 1/2 month backlog of housing inventory, a drop in mortgage interest rates would rev up a few engines.  The National Association of Realtors said that pending home sales rose 0.7%, a gain that came despite bad weather and the impact from subprime mortgage problems.