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We bought our house in 2005 for 352k. Earlier this year it was appraised for 342k. That appraisal was adjusted down to 306k. This is the appraisal our property taxes are based on.
Here is what I learned (this is pasted from an e-mail I sent, names and addresses removed to protect the guilty):
1) Properties in County were selling for higher prices than prior years (going up in value) through March of 2008. It has only been the last 6 months which have seen property values in our county and township sell for less than prior years. The 2008 appraisal values are based on home sales in 2005-2006-2007. The appraisal value is effective Jan 1 2008, so any 2008 sales data does not get applied to assessements until 2011.
2) There are two listings for each property on the auditor’s site. One listing is the parcel of land, the other listing are the improvements to that land (the house).
3) Item 2) is important for our development because I found out our taxes are calculated differently, depending on address. If I understand this right, the front part of our development, a person is taxed 35% on his land parcel and 65% of his dwelling value (or maybe it was 17%-83%, but there is a different breakdown). Any improvements he does to his house will possibly get taxed lower than some of us in the back. In the back our land value stays fixed and we are taxed 100% on the dwelling value. Maybe I misunderstood what I was being told… the way the property tax gets calculated was changed right after our development was allowed to be developed. He made sure to explain that to me- when the back was sold to the developer, the land parcels fell under the new property tax laws and not the ones for the rest of the development. The 65-35 or 83-17 split lasts for 10 years, whereas the 100% dwelling is locked in for 30 years (this is important for the school district from what he explained).
4) The houses are graded by the county. Our house is graded as a B-. There are two identical houses on the cross road to ours which are graded as a C+. The appraisal differences between these houses is 40k (306k to 266k) which is because of the higher grade on my house (or so I was told). The county has no idea which houses are which model- they only know the grades, square footage and sale prices, along with neighborhood, township and county sales trends.
5) Properties are assessed once every 6 years. 2008-2014-2020. In the 3 years between appraisals there is an adjustment based on sales trends. In 2011, there will be an assessment based on sales- meaning 2008-2009-2010 sales data for our development will be analyzed. If the average house sold for 10% less than there appraised value, then our assessments go down 10%. If the average sales price is 3% higher than appraised value, everyone’s assessment goes up 3%.
I created a spreadsheet and many of my neighbors started asking for it when we discussed the appraisals over the weekend.
The county auditor asked for it during our meeting too (I was looking at it when stating my case). My spreadsheet analyzed the houses by model because I know who else built the same floorplan we did. The county does not analyze that (they do not have access to that data).
If you know floorplan data for your neighborhood, you can probably challenge assessments and get lower taxes relative to your neighbors in similar houses if you do this right.
Here is what I learned (this is pasted from an e-mail I sent, names and addresses removed to protect the guilty):
1) Properties in County were selling for higher prices than prior years (going up in value) through March of 2008. It has only been the last 6 months which have seen property values in our county and township sell for less than prior years. The 2008 appraisal values are based on home sales in 2005-2006-2007. The appraisal value is effective Jan 1 2008, so any 2008 sales data does not get applied to assessements until 2011.
2) There are two listings for each property on the auditor’s site. One listing is the parcel of land, the other listing are the improvements to that land (the house).
3) Item 2) is important for our development because I found out our taxes are calculated differently, depending on address. If I understand this right, the front part of our development, a person is taxed 35% on his land parcel and 65% of his dwelling value (or maybe it was 17%-83%, but there is a different breakdown). Any improvements he does to his house will possibly get taxed lower than some of us in the back. In the back our land value stays fixed and we are taxed 100% on the dwelling value. Maybe I misunderstood what I was being told… the way the property tax gets calculated was changed right after our development was allowed to be developed. He made sure to explain that to me- when the back was sold to the developer, the land parcels fell under the new property tax laws and not the ones for the rest of the development. The 65-35 or 83-17 split lasts for 10 years, whereas the 100% dwelling is locked in for 30 years (this is important for the school district from what he explained).
4) The houses are graded by the county. Our house is graded as a B-. There are two identical houses on the cross road to ours which are graded as a C+. The appraisal differences between these houses is 40k (306k to 266k) which is because of the higher grade on my house (or so I was told). The county has no idea which houses are which model- they only know the grades, square footage and sale prices, along with neighborhood, township and county sales trends.
5) Properties are assessed once every 6 years. 2008-2014-2020. In the 3 years between appraisals there is an adjustment based on sales trends. In 2011, there will be an assessment based on sales- meaning 2008-2009-2010 sales data for our development will be analyzed. If the average house sold for 10% less than there appraised value, then our assessments go down 10%. If the average sales price is 3% higher than appraised value, everyone’s assessment goes up 3%.
I created a spreadsheet and many of my neighbors started asking for it when we discussed the appraisals over the weekend.
The county auditor asked for it during our meeting too (I was looking at it when stating my case). My spreadsheet analyzed the houses by model because I know who else built the same floorplan we did. The county does not analyze that (they do not have access to that data).
If you know floorplan data for your neighborhood, you can probably challenge assessments and get lower taxes relative to your neighbors in similar houses if you do this right.
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