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McDonald's makes over 1,200 times the company's average salaried worker. We all agree on one thing

and pretty much one thing only.

Big companies pay more.

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John Mara built his first forever home about 35 years ago outside of Cleveland, Ohio.

He's a contractor, so he remembers building rooms for his kids, a kitchen, a patio.

One summer, he even dug his own pool in the backyard. My whole idea was to have all my grandchildren come there and enjoy because I had a pool there. And it was just a tree house in the back. It was along the woods on a ravine. It was just, like I said, it was a fun house for kids to grow up in, like little ponds in the front. I call it my ego system. And no, I never wanted to leave there.

But John says over the years, living in his forever home became less affordable. John's health

took a turn for the worse, and he lost some money in a bad business investment. But he says

his property tax bill became one of the biggest pressures on his finances. Taxes started out there about $2,000 a year.

Within 25 years, it went all the up to $13,000, okay?

I was paying more than I was paying for my original mortgage, okay?

John decided to downsize about seven years ago, a three-bedroom brick house on the shore of Lake Erie.

But during the pandemic, John started to notice property values rising again, this time even faster.

And all of a sudden, one of his neighbors sold their home for what felt like an absurd price.

The person bought it. He had grown up in the neighborhood, and he wanted to be on the lake. So, and he was out of state, had the money, and basically he overpaid for it because he just wanted it. You know, and basically he was turning into Airbnb, too. So he was running it as a business. It was an emotional buy, so he paid whatever it was. I mean, if they would have asked a million for, they would have got a million. But he paid him 700,000, which was double what it was worth, really.

But that's because, again, he wanted. Well, then with that, they used that as a comp, okay,

to raise the value on my house.

In one year, John's yearly bill went from $6,000 to $10,000, a 67% increase.

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