Renfrew Report… Property Tax Explosion… When does it end? My personal experience
Property Taxes in Seattle: When Does It End?
By Arron Renfrew | Asset Manager | Renfrew Team | AUM Real Estate
When I bought my home back in 2017, I knew I was stretching. Like a lot of homeowners in Seattle, I wasn’t just buying a house—I was planting roots. I was thinking long-term. Family. Stability. Community.
At the time, my property taxes were about $7,500 a year. I remember shaking my head and thinking, that’s high. But I justified it. Good city, growing region, decent services—it felt like part of the deal.
Fast forward eight years.
Same house. Same neighborhood. Frankly, the same—or arguably worse—level of services.
And now? My property taxes are $33,466.
Let that sink in.
That’s not a typo. That’s not a projection. That’s the reality. And to make it even more unbelievable, they jumped $11,000 just from last year.
So naturally, I’m asking the same question a lot of homeowners are asking:
Where is the supposed 6% cap?
We’re constantly told there are limits, guardrails, protections in place. But what good are those if they don’t reflect reality? Inflation over this same period is roughly 34.71%. If taxes followed anything remotely tied to that, I’d be paying somewhere around $10,103 today.
Not $33,000.
This isn’t a slow creep. This is a sprint.
And here’s where it gets even harder to swallow:
Washington State spending during this same period has increased at three times the rate of inflation and nine times the rate of population growth.
Read that again.
So I have to ask—because I genuinely want to know:
Where is it going?
Because I’m not seeing it in my daily life.
I’m not experiencing better infrastructure.
I’m not seeing dramatically improved public services.
I’m not feeling safer, more supported, or better served as a homeowner or as a citizen.
Are you?
Three years ago, I hit a breaking point and hired a lawyer to challenge what I believed—and still believe—is an excessive and unjustified increase. That case is still tied up in appeals court today. That’s how slow and difficult it is to push back against the system.
In the meantime, the bills keep coming.
Here’s something I’ll say that might make some people uncomfortable:
If you’re a homeowner and your property taxes are quietly being paid through escrow, you may not fully grasp what’s happening.
Because I don’t use escrow.
I write the check myself.
And I can tell you—there is nothing like watching that kind of money leave your account in one shot. It changes your perspective. It forces awareness. It makes the issue real in a way that monthly escrow payments simply don’t.
Maybe—just maybe—if more people felt that same sting, we’d start asking harder questions. Demanding clearer answers. Holding elected officials accountable for what increasingly feels like reckless taxation paired with reckless spending.
This isn’t about refusing to pay taxes. It’s about demanding transparency, proportionality, and responsibility.
Because at some point, every homeowner is going to hit the same wall I’ve hit.
And when they do, the question won’t just be “How did this happen?”
It’ll be:
“Why did we let it?”
