10 acres and taxes under 2 K, wow. That is incredible.
2100 square foot home, detached shop and 3½ acres...$871 dollars per year
5200 square foot home, 1500 square foot home, undeveloped 4 acre house lot (with well and septic), plus a sawmill and 900 square foot outbuilding...$3400 per year. (The farm is split over two town lines and I have yet to get the other tax bill from that town, but its similar to this taxes per acre) ($10 per acre)
Now I could get more off my taxes if I went with the State Tree Growth Program, which would take 60% of the property taxes off the woodland. That would limit what I could do with my woodlot though, so thus far I have not taken advantage of that. I do get a cut rate for open land, (pasture) and farm land (tillable crops) and of course the homestead exception, but hey everyone out in the country gets that. The point here is, if you live in the country and do the right thing (farm) you can get some tax breaks. Of course since only 1% of this nation is feeding the other 99%, I figure that is only fair.
But we do pay for it in other ways. My commute is 84 miles per day and everyone of my neighbors works in the same town as me. A 24 hour store is 20 miles away. A walmart is 30. A Home Depot is an hours drive. We don't get cable here, but it comes on spools and we use it on our skidders.
Satellite is nice, but delivered pizza is non-existent. A plowed road in a snowstorm is a luxury, and it might be weeks before we see pavement after snow starts falling.
All in all, the taxes are nice, but no one stays here. Its a trend that has been going on for decades. Some people will move in, brag up the cheap taxes and available land (the average homeowner here owns 80 acres or more), and then slowly realize that life here is tough. The snow, the cold, working for just above minimal wage, and replacing your car every two years, etc. As far as I can tell it takes about 8 years for people to decide to move on.
It should come as no surprise that most young people move away and Maine has the highest elderly population in the nation...and the work force in the nation too. We pay the highest overall taxes in the nation (low property taxes but every other tax is levied on us) and 35% of my neighbors live below the poverty line.
And my take on all this...I have lived at 930 East Thorndike Road, and 945 East Thorndike Road, (400 feet apart) so its just plain home no matter what the demographics are like. Buildings, acreage and livestock mean very little. One good fire or disease breakout and you have nothing anyway, so home is indeed where the heart is. A good weekend for me is arriving here on Thursday Night and not leaving until Monday morning. When you get a place like that, its truly home, no matter what surrounds you. If where you are living is like that now, then don't move, but if it's not, then by all means buy it and make it into a place you never want to leave.
My .02 cents...