Research
High Home Values, Low Tax Rates: Where Expensive Counties Pay Less
PlainPropertyTax identifies high-cost U.S. counties (median home value above $600,000) that nonetheless carry the lowest effective property tax rates, showing how a large tax bill does not always mean a high rate. Updated automatically as our source data refreshes.
Research period:
Compiled by Plainpropertytax Editorial on 2026-06-09Research question
Among the most expensive U.S. counties, where median home values exceed $600,000, which carry the lowest effective property tax rates, and what does that reveal about the difference between a high tax bill and a high tax rate?
Methodology
This ranking is generated automatically from the U.S. Census Bureau's published dataset and reflects the most recently reported figures for each entity. The page updates whenever we refresh our copy of the source data, so the numbers always match the latest release we have ingested.
Coverage and exclusions: entities with no reported value for this metric are left out of the ranking rather than shown as zero, since a missing figure is not the same as an actual zero. U.S. Census Bureau occasionally withholds a value for confidentiality, small-sample, or quality-control reasons, and those withheld entries are excluded the same way.
Data provenance: U.S. Census Bureau publishes this dataset on its own release schedule, and we pull each new release as it becomes publicly available. If a later release revises a prior figure, the revised number will appear here automatically the next time we refresh our copy, no part of this page is hand-edited.
Editorial governance: PlainPropertyTax maintains an editorial standards process covering how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how corrections are processed if an entity disputes a figure attributed to it. A named editor reviews this page before publication, shown in the byline above. Corrections and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels linked in the site footer.
Transparency: every number on this page traces back to a specific U.S. Census Bureau source record, linked from the entity pages reachable from this ranking. See our methodology page for the full source list, update cadence, and how each figure is derived.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
High Home Values, Low Tax Rates: Where Expensive Counties Pay Less
Live data, updated automatically whenever we refresh our copy of the source
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the most recent data we have on file. Refresh the page after we update our copy of the source to see the latest values.
| # | County | Median home value | Median tax | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maui County | $904,700 | $1,466 | 0.16% |
| 2 | Kauai County | $873,200 | $1,866 | 0.21% |
| 3 | Nantucket County | $1.6M | $3,974 | 0.25% |
| 4 | San Miguel County | $720,700 | $1,900 | 0.26% |
| 5 | Ouray County | $739,800 | $2,050 | 0.28% |
| 6 | Honolulu County | $897,500 | $2,553 | 0.28% |
| 7 | Gunnison County | $621,800 | $1,798 | 0.29% |
| 8 | Chaffee County | $665,700 | $1,901 | 0.29% |
| 9 | Valley County | $657,000 | $1,964 | 0.30% |
| 10 | Teton County | $690,500 | $2,143 | 0.31% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Property Tax and Housing Characteristics. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Property Tax and Housing Characteristics. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Maui County, with a value of $1,466 on the Median home value column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Census Bureau publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record ($1,466) and the 10th-ranked record ($2,143) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Census Bureau, specifically the American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Property Tax and Housing Characteristics. PlainPropertyTax ingests the source vintage published by the agency and republishes it here in a clear, browsable format. Every page reflects our most recent copy of the data, there is no stale cached export, and an update from the source agency propagates to this page within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how each figure is derived.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Median home value figures from the US Census Bureau ACS reflect the median bill paid by owner-occupied households with a mortgage; they do not directly measure the statutory millage rate or the assessment ratio that local jurisdictions apply. High-median states like New Jersey and New York reflect both higher property values and the dependence of local school and municipal services on property tax revenue, while low-median states like Alabama and Louisiana reflect both lower property values and a heavier reliance on alternative revenue sources (sales tax, severance tax, state aid to local government). Effective rate is computed as median tax divided by median home value, which approximates the average burden but smooths over wide intrastate variation between high-tax urban counties and low-tax rural counties within the same state. The ACS 5-year aggregate smooths year-to-year variation and lags rapid changes in tax policy or home values; the figure shown here corresponds to the most recent vintage in our snapshot. Property tax incidence ultimately depends on local assessment practice, homestead exemptions, senior-citizen and veteran exemptions, and tax-cap legislation, none of which are captured in this state-level aggregate.
Secondary cut from the same source
The same high-value county set ranked by highest effective rate, the other end of the spread
Sources
- US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Selected Housing Characteristics, Table DP04) - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
- US Census Bureau, Property Taxes Paid by Homeowners (Table B25103) - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/data-tables.html