Chattanooga is home to approximately 90,000 residential properties, with research indicating that about 25,128 of these are mortgaged. For these homeowners, property taxes—let’s say, averaging an estimated $2,500 annually in combined city and county rates, these are typically bundled into monthly mortgage payments via escrow. This structure offers convenience, but it also obscures the actual weight of the tax burden.
When you do the math, those 25,128 mortgaged homes represent a staggering estimated $62.8 million in annual property taxes.
Yet most of these residents never see a direct bill. The cost is quietly absorbed into their mortgage, camouflaging the impact and muting public awareness. For many, especially those on fixed incomes or living paycheck to paycheck, paying $2,500 in a single lump sum would be financially devastating.
This hidden dynamic matters. When property taxes increase, mortgaged homeowners often don’t feel the pinch immediately. There’s no annual invoice, no moment of reckoning, just a subtle uptick in monthly payments that may go unnoticed. As a result, tax hikes can pass quietly, without the scrutiny or pushback they might otherwise provoke.
Meanwhile, the remaining estimate of 64,872 non-mortgaged homeowners, including retirees, veterans and long-time residents, often face the full brunt of these increases head-on. For them, the annual bill is real, visible and sometimes unmanageable.
If we’re serious about protecting Chattanooga’s most vulnerable residents, we must acknowledge how property tax structures affect perception and affordability. Escrows may soften the blow, but they also hide the punch. Transparency, outreach and thoughtful reform—primarily through programs like PILOT—are essential to ensuring that a system blindsides no homeowner they don’t fully see.
It is trusted that the City Council members have not taken the early position of: “Don’t bother us with the facts, we have already made up our minds.”
Johnny Jones