A couple of things:
1. The podcasts don't take very long to record, but they take a while to write (no, for the most, I'm not improvising). I'll try to get the next one up this coming week, hopefully by Saturday at the latest.
2. You can now download the Death and Taxes podcast on iTunes. If you go to the iTunes store and search for "death and taxes blog podcast," you can find it. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how else you can find it -- there's no "legal" category in iTunes, so I'm stuck in the "business" category. Anyway, you can listen to or download individual episodes, or subscribe to the podcast.
Real estate transfer taxes vary greatly in the Chicagoland area. Here is a list (in PDF form). Note, however, that this list doesn't include any changes since July of 2007. For instance, it's missing the recent change (effective 4/1/08) to Chicago's transfer taxes. Traditionally, Chicago's tax was unique in that it was assessed only against buyers -- most transfer taxes are paid by sellers. Chicago now has a transfer tax for buyers AND sellers, at the following rates:
For buyers: $7.50 per $1,000.00 of purchase price
For sellers: $3.00 per $1,000.00 of purchase price (this is in addition to the combined county and state transfer tax of $1.50 per $1,000.00 of purchase price)
According to this article, Chicago now has the highest transfer taxes in the nation!
I used to recommend (somewhat facetiously) moving from Chicago to Oak Park, as Chicago only taxed buyers and Oak Park only taxed sellers. The result would be a pretty huge savings on the opposite move (from Oak Park to Chicago -- Oak Park taxes sellers at a rate of $8 per $1,000.00):
Transfer Taxes (prior to 4/1/08)
assuming sale of $400,000 home and purchase of $500,000 home
Sale in Chicago, Purchase in Oak Park: $600.00 (just county and state transfer tax on sale)
Sale in Oak Park, Purchase in Chicago: $7,550.00 ($3,800 for sale plus $3,750 for purchase)
That's a difference of almost $7,000! Of course, the difference is now smaller -- the tax hit for a "sale in Chicago, purchase in Oak Park" scenario as of 4/1/08 is $1,800.00.
Note that you can still find "bargains" from a transfer tax perspective, as municipalities like La Grange and Hinsdale have no transfer taxes whatsoever. You can use the above list and a little research to check on the municipality to which you are planning a move.
