In a lot of places, if not most, property taxes are based on the assessed "current market value" of your house and audited annually, which can change a lot from year to year. Property taxes are paid annually, not when the house sells. If the house goes up 10x in a year, the property tax also rises which makes it very hard on a fixed income when you're retired, especially when the gov't artificially calculates inflation at a lower rate so they don't have to pay as much in social security benefits to those seniors reducing their purchasing power over time.

Property taxes are supposed to cover your local government's running services - police, fire brigade, trash/sanitation, water and roads.

Properly distributed, they should not be high.

Property taxes are not a slush fund for the government, nor should they be deferrable. They are intended to be running expenses.

And the fact property taxes are often used as a slush fund makes those of us paying attention very sensitive to their increase. With those taxes comes bureaucratic power and control, often leading to more taxes and less of a say over how one lives one's life.