Wallace is a 32 -year-old member of the protective services. He and his fiancee are looking for a house, to settle down and to start a family of their own. On his currently salary, he said, he qualifies for a house worth just under $500,000. Wallace has spent his life in west Trinidad and wants to continue living there. But even a lot of land there cost well above $500,000 let alone a home.
It is a subject the Sunday BG has explored before, the inability of those in T&T's middle class and middle-income brackets to qualify for mortgages for the homes they want, in locations in which they want to live. This week, the Sunday BG raises another potential consideration: the return of property tax.
Wallace is resigned to the introducion of property tax, "I have seen where the government is spending, where it is going and what it is being spent on. I was expecting the property tax to kick in anyway."
For couples struggling to save for downpayments, a reintroduction of property tax would represent an additional cost which, depending on their income, may push homeownership even further out of their reach.
Responding to a question posed by Jack Warner, Chaguanas West MP in February, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar said that her government has no plans to bring back the tax to supplement declining energy revenues.
But the return of the tax may not be up to the Prime Minister. With an election due this year, the government may change. If oil remains under US$65 a barrel, the need to consider other revenue-raising measures may become a possibility.
How much of a cost?
Stephen Kangal was a well-known commentator on property tax matters during the days of the Axe the Tax campaign in 2009 and 2010. Then, he was against the reformed 2009 tax as would have been introduced by the then PNM government had it won that year's election.
Kangal said his primary objection to the tax back then was the exorbitant increase under the 2009 provisions.
Kangal, who lives in Chaguanas, said under the Land and Building Tax of 1948, his home, built in 1968, would have drawn a negligible fee. The 1948 legislation calculated the tax at 7.5 per cent of the home's annual rental value and set a separate fee for the lands on which the house was built.
"My assessment value was $300 at the time when our house was built, so I was paying $32.50 for house tax and since I had a lot of land anything less than an acre was ten dollars," said Kangal.
Under the 2009 legislation, however, Kangal said the increase in his tax amounted to thousands of dollars, even though the percentage was reduced to 3 per cent and the land and house payment were amalgamated.
"My house presently has a rental value closer to $7,000 a month," said Kangal, "If I apply the three percent, I go from $32.50 a year to $2,200, possibly more."
By the Sunday BG's calculation, the new tax amount would, in fact, be $2,520.
Kangal said his three-bedroom home is worth $2.5 million in today's market, similar to several homes Wallace and his fiancee would find suitable in west Trinidad.
Using the online mortgage calculators of several local banks and assuming an interest rate of 6 per cent with a downpayment of 10 per cent and 30 years to repay, Wallace and his fiancee could expect to pay a mortgage between $10,000 and $14,000.
With an combined income of $20,000, the couple would find such payments a stretch. Assuming a reintroduced property tax of $2,520, based on the rental value of Kangal's home, the couple will have to find an additional $210 every month.
"I have about $25,000 saved and that wasn't from my government salary but doing jobs for people. My government salary pays my bills. That's all it could do anyway," said Wallace.
He is a qualified audio technician. It is the income he earns from doing recordings that gets him the extras he may need.
So far, he has purchased $35,000 worth of recording equipment as well as $70,000 worth of tools to make jewelry, another side business he has entered.
But it is evident, even to Wallace, that a great many private jobs will be needed to make a mortgage of $13,000 every month.
Next week, we return to the issue of property tax and prospective first time home owners.
Would HDC housing fill their need and are servicemen getting their allocation from the national housing stock?
Will HDC homes, now currently exempt from property taxes, be subject to them in the future?
What is the likelihood that the tax may return at all?
In next week's edition of the Sunday BG, we speak to Jearlean John of the HDC, Ingrid Lashley of the T&T Mortgage Finance Company, Christine Sahadeo, former PNM senator and finance minister, and Stephen Kangal.