I think you're being too speculative here. If you're really trying to minimize paying taxes, then you should be moving to a state with no income tax, don't buy property there (because states with no income tax tend to make up for it with high property taxes), and don't live in a city because cities will have local taxes. But you move to NYC, you do so because NYC is awesome and living here is great. I wouldn't pay less taxes to live in the middle of nowhere.
> ... you should be moving to a state with no income tax, don't buy property there (because states with no income tax tend to make up for it with high property taxes)
Remember not to rent too, otherwise landlords would passthrough the high property to you.
This isn't true in many places for lots of reasons. E.g. in California the owner could easily have grandfathered-in low property tax thanks to Prop 13, that you as a new housing purchaser couldn't benefit from. Or there could be NY-style rent regulation that controls the allowable rental price and doesn't take property tax into consideration at all. Or it could simply be that property taxes go up in a neighborhood (which you'd have to pay if you owned) but that rents do not, for whatever reason; this happens all the time.
As a renter, all you care about is what the rent is. If the rent is good, then you're good. Property tax is very much NOT priced into buying a property, and is an ongoing expense to worry about that moves in way that rent does not.
