No property tax on new homes? Rockford considers extending 3-year program

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The City of Rockford wants new homeowners to have a break from paying property taxes for three years.

The Three-Year Property Tax Rebate Program for Newly-Built Residential Construction went into effect in 2023 and is coming up for renewal.

“If you pulled a permit to build that home in 2024, you get a three-year tax rebate. So for the next three years, you don’t pay property taxes [and then] year four, year five, you start to pay property taxes,” said Mayor Tom McNamara.

“We definitely think our property tax rebate program has jump-started a lot of the new construction for residential use that we saw in 2024,” McNamara went on. “Typically before that, we would see between 10 and 25 residences being built. Now we saw more than 130 of them.”

The new homes include single-family homes, duplexes, and quads, the most construction Rockford has seen since 2007.

“We are doing this on an existing lot. So, what we’re not doing is expanding Rockford out to areas where there may not be water, there may not be sewer lines. What we’re doing is what we call ‘in-fill.’ And so we’re ‘in-filling’ existing parcels that just have not been developed yet,” McNamara said.

Rockford’s Finance and Personnel Committee meets Monday night to discuss and vote on continuing the program.