Housing affordability and property taxes
Cary's tax revenue has grown with every new home and business, yet property tax bills rose 60.3% in three years. That is unsustainable.
Cary’s housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable. While it’s still a very popular place to relocate, limited housing options have squeezed potential buyers and caused significant increases in Cary housing prices and rents. I’d like to see more emphasis on keeping our Town’s naturally occurring affordable housing and continued partnerships with the many organizations that advocate for affordable housing. Taxes are a big reason things are unaffordable.
Cary is home to many long-time residents, retired folks and workers. These citizens need to know they can pay off their homes and not be forced to sell them in later years and move away because of ever-increasing property tax bills.
Cary has been experiencing explosive growth over the last 20+ years, yet the administrations have not used that growth for the benefit of citizens.
Since 2019, there have been over 16,000 new, taxable properties, both commercial and residential, added to the Cary tax rolls. These properties have a total value of over $1.25 billion and yield well over $4.5 million per year in property tax revenue. Each year thousands of additional new properties come onto the Cary tax rolls, yielding even more tax revenue.
This is in addition to the personal property taxes on citizens’ vehicles, whose number has increased over the last decade at the rate of eight new vehicles per day, every day, 365 days a year. The number of vehicles continues to increase each year at that same rate, further increasing the tax revenue.
This is also in addition to Cary’s share of sales tax revenue, which, contrary to frequently repeated reports, has increased every single year for at least a decade.
Instead of lowering taxes, as these huge revenue increases would have allowed, the Town Councils have unanimously increased real property tax bills 42% in 2024, 4.6% in 2025 and 8.01% in 2026, for a cumulative increase of 60.3% in three years.
This is unsustainable and will force more long-time residents to leave Cary for more affordable areas.