My parents just got hit with a 30% property tax increase. The tax rate wasn’t increased, but whoever is in charge of such things decided that their house is worth 30% more than it was three years ago. Is there any way to find out online how much houses in the neighborhood have been sold for in the last few years? I’ve managed to find citywide data (they live in El Paso, TX), but I’ve not been able to find anything more detailed than that.
That’s awful.
What your parents are going through is why California voted in Proposition 13.
Well, the city is limmited to a 10% increase/yr. They have 30 days to contest the increase. One way would be to look at how much similar houses in the neighborhood sold for, but I’m not sure how they can find that out.
Don’t forget that ‘appraisal’ and ‘assessment’ can be two different things.
It’s awful that his parents house has increased in value by nearly a third?
Or are you saying that it’s awful that they have to pay their fair share of taxes to keep the community police, fire, roads, etc. operating?
If the latter, this topic will soon move to GD.
In Texas, the local appraisal district can provide a list of properties sold in the neighborhood and other information used to estimate a home’s appraised value… all for a fee, of course.
Be warned though that things are tougher nowadays. I understand that the Robin Hood school funding plan* has resulted in court decisions that basically require appraisal districts to play hardball on property values. Your parents may get a higher appraised value if they protest.
*Public schools in Texas are funded through property taxes. To achieve equity between rich and poor school districts, a “Robin Hood” system has been established where part of the taxes from richer school districts are transferred to poorer districts.
The info on how much houses have sold for is public information. There are several ways of finding this information out. One of them is the local (home town, usually weekly) paper, and it will (usually, offer valid in small towns only) list the housing sales in the area.
The other way is to contact town hall. This information is there, though in your state/county/town, it may be held with the Registrar of Deeds, which may be in your county government.
The third way to find out is to contact a realtor in the area, they have access to the MLS (Multiple listing service) and it tracks not only how much it sold for last, but the asking price histories.
As for the re-evaluations, we went through this in my home town recently, and we were about the same sort of % increase. Though many had near heart attacks, as the reassessments had not been done in 10 years (maximum interval in my state). Some folks went from assessed values of 50K to 250K overnight.
Granted, the total tax in (tax / 1000 of assessed value) is recalculated based on the new assessment of the entire town as it compares to the budget.
In most cases you will likely end up paying less per thousand, but unless the town has had a severe budget increase, or your house was severely underassessed to begin with, it shouldn’t make a huge difference in the overall bill you recieve. (Ours was a delta of about 200, which we expected due to higher total in the overall budget).
Thanks everyone ('cept for t-bonham ) for the info. I’ll have them look into some of those sources. They purchased the house about 9 years ago, and there have been periodic assessment increases. They were just really shocked by this last one, especially since their mortgage now costs less/mo than the taxes. What seems to have happened (according to my cynical father) is that a proposal to raise the property taxes for the local schools was rejected by the voters because the district was using its money inefficiently and people were fed up. The district then had their buddies over in the assessment department (or whatever it’s called) raise everyone’s property values. I don’t know how accurate my father’s opinion of the city’s various bureaucracies is, but he does have a point. There hasn’t been any large housing boom in our neighborhood. The 30% increase in 3 years seems a bit steep, especially since the average for the city is around 17% according to some .gov site I was looking at earlier.
Try domainia.com for a look at what houses in your neighborhood have sold for. You may have to sign up, and endure the pas de deux through the obligatory realtor ads, but it’s worthwhile site once you actually get to it. You can search by street and address if you want.
Call the assessor and ask for a recent sales report in the neighborhood. They will be able to print it off no problem. It may cost a couple bucks; we generally do it gratis. You, i.e. the OP, can also ask for a list of assessed values and true cash values (the TCV is what it is predicted to be worth and the assessed is, in Michigan, about half that), and you can compare to see how generally close they are.
Also, just call the assessor and ask why the change in price. That’s what they’re there for. It’s part of the job. Don’t have your dad call, he obviously clueless and will only offend the person on the other end.
Oh, and if he ever wants to get an extended tour of a Michigan ICU, have him come make those sorts of slanderous remarks around here.
The county also has a web site: http://www.elpasocad.org (the El Paso Central Appraisal District), where you can look up property values in your neighborhood. Last week, I contested my property’s value (in Dallas County), and got it reduced from $345K to $325K, so that’s how you do it. An appraisal is needed to show that their numbers are too high, which costs a few hundred dollars, but it’s worth it.
But if the apprasied value was too low, and they just upped it to market values, your folks are out of luck.