It varies so much state to state that I'm not sure how much input you're going to get here of any value. I'll tell you my story.
I'm in Michigan. We were in a recession for 8 years before we slipped into a depression about 2 years ago. Property values have been dropping like crazy. It took until this year, 2010, before my taxes actually went down despite the value of my home going down. And by going down, I meant the taxing authority was lowering the value all those years.
It finally went down due to the convoluted tax laws we have here.
I just got notice yesterday that my property taxes will be going down just under $700 this year.
You may want to take those property tax figures with a grain of salt. You need to find out how your taxing authority intends to tax a purchase. Will it be actual purchase price or will it be an inflated value that they feel the home is worth? Here, they can't count what they term "distress sales" when determining property values. It's a Catch-22 because so little is actually selling on the open market (excluding foreclosures, distress sales, etc.) that it's nearly impossible to determine the value of a property anymore.
Hope this didn't just confuse you.