The most lucrative way to spend 3 hours
What's the biggest pay-off you've ever gotten from a small investment of time?
Here's one of mine: Contesting my property taxes. It's no secret that the real estate market is in an unhappy place at the moment. The upside, though, is that falling home values can mean lower assessments if you take a few hours to contest what you owe.
My husband and I bought a home this spring for about 20% below the price that it sold for a few years ago. We sent evidence of this reduced value (and a few other forms) to a lawyer, who filed the paperwork with local authorities. They heard our case and agreed that we were paying too much. The net result for a few hours of work? A savings of a few thousand dollars a year, even after the lawyer's fees. And you don't have to hire a lawyer; MoneyWatch ran a story two years ago giving step-by-step instructions for contesting your taxes yourself.
By some estimates, about 60 percent of taxable property is over-assessed. That means that most home owners are paying more than a fair assessment would indicate they owe. Yet, surprisingly, nowhere near that many people ever seek relief.
This is fascinating, if you think about it. People spend time paging through circulars with their scissors to find coupons for 50 cents off toothpaste. They'll drive another mile or two to save ten cents per gallon on gas. But activities with huge financial upsides, like contesting property taxes, are under-subscribed.
This makes no sense. As we're all trying to be smarter about money these days, rather than chase after pennies, it seems far wiser to go after dollars. Certain activities have a huge pay-off for time spent: Negotiating up your salary, negotiating down the price of a car or house, refinancing for a lower mortgage rate, and getting your property taxes knocked down. Choose one of these, and you'll reap the equivalent of years of coupon-cutting, possibly in less time than it takes to read a newspaper cover-to-cover.
What's the most lucrative way you've ever spent a few hours?
