MINNEAPOLIS — If you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul, surely you've heard: Your property taxes might be increasing next year.
As part of their 2025 budget proposals, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter have both respectively pitched increasing the property tax levy by roughly 8 percent. To be exact, the proposed number in Minneapolis is 8.1 percent, while the figure in St. Paul is slightly lower at 7.9 percent.
If approved by the city council, that would mean an extra $207 for the median homeowner in Minneapolis next year and another $132 for the median homeowner in St. Paul.
Both Carter and Frey have acknowledged they face difficult choices in the 2025 budget process.
Frey, in particular, singled out a number of factors driving up costs for the city, including inflation, plummeting downtown property values, labor costs and less federal COVID aid.
However, these trends are not isolated to the Twin Cities. According to Minnesota Department of Revenue data, local governments increased their property tax revenues by nearly 7 percent last year, in line with national trends.
Tony Huettl, who lives in Northfield, said he has noticed a steady increase in property taxes in his city the past five years or so. (State data shows a nearly 9 percent increase in Northfield's property tax levy from 2023 to 2024).
"Nobody likes that, but everybody likes the nice things that the money is being spent on," Huettl said. "So, it's a hard call."
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, 27-year-old Katie Roh said the prospect of rising property taxes will further prevent her from buying a home, given that overall prices and mortgage rates are already high.
"It's already insane," Roh said. "Everything they do just makes it more and more unrealistic to be able to buy a house in the future. It's kind of disappointing."