Hi everyone. Looking into this as an alternative investment strategy. I'll be buying a house soon and I intend to rent out part of whatever house I buy in order to cover the mortgage.

So far I know about calculating the cost of the mortgage, and websites like Zillow list the property tax history, but I feel like I'm missing something. For example: In my grandmother's town, she pays ~4k per year for school taxes. I reason that this should be accounted for when purchasing a property as part of the yearly expenses, since they aren't typically owed otherwise.

Then there's home insurance, and the potential for property taxes to go up when purchasing a property because I guess it triggers reevaluation by the local government? All of this adds up and I'm not seeing any threads talking about it.

All I see are threads talking about property management and vacancy costs, but $4,000 per year in school taxes seem like they might cut pretty significantly into yearly revenue. There might be other taxes in a municipality or some other hidden costs I'm not even thinking of.

So...

1: How do you account for this? How do you compare the potential tax liability in municipality A vs. B? Just read over the official tax codes? Consult an attorney or something? Is there some other professional every town has I should consult to gather more accurate data?

2: How does one calculate home insurance costs? Do you just ballpark it, or is there a formula?

3: Best way to ballpark assess property taxes? Is that information public record? Would likely make comparing neighboring properties a viable strategy.

Thank you!