The tax rate in Islamorada, FL is approx 1%. As an agent that actually lives here, I can answer this question. FYI, the home was immediately listed and is under contract for $1.8 million

Property Taxes will be APPROXIMATE range of: 1.5% to 1.8%. of purchase price.
Jim Soda - Prudential Palms Realty
941-809-7759 Sarasota, Fl.

Agreed with Marc - A friend of mine loves to enter into HGTV Sweepstakes and she told me the winners are responsible for paying the tax on the house they win.; I am not just talking about property tax (which depends on the county the house is in), the person has to first pay tax on the winning which is a big chunk (kind of like winning lottery?) .

According to her, one winner has to sell the house so they can pay the federal tax, so you might want to check into that.

So, our deal is, if she wins, she will have a huge party for friends for a month (O.K. maybe not that long), and then she sells and I get to represent her (just joking on that, because I dont' think HGTV has a Marin Home).

Disclaimer - I did not do research on this, but my friend is pretty reliable.

Sylvia

The local property taxes will be the smallest of their worries. The big numbers come with the Income tax due the IRS on this windfall most likely up over 1 million. This is the reason I believe all of the previous winners have sold their grand prize.

Go online to the County Tax Appraiser for Islamorada. It's not just the taxes that you will be stuck with. It's also the flood insurance and home owners insurance.

Congratulations if you were the one who won, or maybe not.

Different than the county where I live, Monroe County (where Islamorada is located) does not have a tax estimator on it's site http://www.monroetaxcollector.com/ . If you are really curious (or won already), you could call them.

FYI, in Broward (Fort Lauderdale area) property tax would be an estimated $34,000 p.a. without including any exemptions. If that sounds not really appealing, the winner could of course always sell it and invest the money.

Good luck!
Tobias Kaiser

IT depends on the tax rate. In Austin our taxes are as high as 2.8 in some places. That would put them at 60k per year! I'm sure the HGTV folks have thought of this and made arrangements to prepay taxes. I'm going to park it here to see what the other answers are. Heck, they could just sell it and move if it came down to it.