We’ll see. My property taxes didn’t go down.
>We’ll see. My property taxes didn’t go down.
That’s what I meant. Neither did mine. And I appealed for a re-assessment and they flat out refused (I bought my house foreclosed after years of vacancy and they charged me for the original valuation).
Every time the county does a revaluation I appeal the assessment on my home. It takes a few hours of work. I get the sales price of every home in my neighborhood for the preceding two years. I then study the value of the land and the value of the home separately. I also pull building permits for additions and modifications going back at least 10 years. My goal is to demonstrate a recent real market comparable price per square foot below the value per foot the county has put on my house.
The neighborhood is 20 years old. My home has not been remodeled or changed since being built. Many neighbors have remodeled, added additions, porches, swimming pools, outdoor kitchens, etc. It can be argued those houses deserve a higher value per square foot than mine. With knowledge of the neighborhood, and quantitative data it is easy to lay out a case for my home being worth less than most of the recent resales of improved properties.
Another thing that can help is a recent distressed sale. I recently benefited from a house nearby that sat on the market nearly two years. Two teenage sons of the owner had done significant damage to the interior and the owner refused to do repairs to make it more attractive to buyers. He moved to another city and eventually accepted a lowball offer. That sale was the most recent comparable sale to my house. I made the case that most recent sale reflected the current market comparable price per square foot for my house and won. Due to this appeal the assessed value for my home dropped 16% from what the county gave me as the new assessment. I now pay less property taxes than I did 10 years ago.
Most people don’t appeal property tax valuations on their homes so if you can make a strong case for a lower value being the market price, backed by hard data, the county assessors usually will make an adjustment. They are typically applying an across the board inflation factor to neighborhoods and houses that haven’t sold since the last revaluation. Homes for which there is a recent sale, get adjusted based on that recent sale. I always appeal and have always obtained a reduction. Note, the county never uses my adjusted valuation to reassess the entire neighborhood. The county takes the position property owners who don’t appeal are in agreement with the assessment.
In the example above I requested an 18% reduction. Given a choice between a 16% reduction, and the time and expense of going to court to appeal, I took the bird in the hand.