$125,000 – Baloney!

So JCI says the average home price in Duluth is $125,000. Bull. If it were, the average taxes on the Red Plan for homeowners, would be much less and that’s just the impression JCI want’s to leave people with. We’ve been looking into more and more of JCI’s claims and this one is flat out wrong.

This is what piqued my curiosity. In the survey which JCI paid for people were told that the “median” home in Duluth cost $125,000. Median is a statistical term for the point in the middle. In other words half of all homes would cost more than $125,000 and the other half less. However, of the people surveyed by JCI, 46% said their houses cost more than $125,000 and only 15% said their houses cost less than $125,000. (We presume the rest were renters or had some other accommodations) A 46%/15% split doesn’t make $125,000 sound like the middle to us.

We sent a volunteer who is a long time Duluth realtor to the City Assesor’s to find out how much houses have been selling for recently. (She had warned us how this red plan would drive people out of their homes.) She reported this back.

“Hi Harry, I have talked to the city assessor and he looked up for me the average sale price for the last 3 years. He called me back a said that price is $168,800.00. I could not get any one from the county assessor’s office. G”

There you have it. More evidence of JCI’s lowballing the tax impact of the Red Plan.

About the author