Homeowner's Property Value

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ArgentCy

Well-Known Member
Jan 13, 2010
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Assessed value has little to do with what you pay in property taxes. Trust me.

It directly determines what you pay along with the rollback values (set by state) and the mill rates.
 

mkadl

Well-Known Member
Mar 17, 2006
1,850
603
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Cornfield
It directly determines what you pay along with the rollback values (set by state) and the mill rates.


If your property increases in value more than what the State thinks the taxing jurisdictions need they may rollback the valuations even more. Your "mil rate" could go up and if the rollbacks are increased your taxes could go down, even with increased valuation!! The mill rates are determined by tax asking and total property values after the state has set rollbacks. It is an 18 month process. Weird deal, if a tornado wipes out your home you pay property taxes on that home that just disappeared. Until it is caught up to in valuations.
 

ArgentCy

Well-Known Member
Jan 13, 2010
20,387
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If your property increases in value more than what the State thinks the taxing jurisdictions need they may rollback the valuations even more. Your "mil rate" could go up and if the rollbacks are increased your taxes could go down, even with increased valuation!! The mill rates are determined by tax asking and total property values after the state has set rollbacks. It is an 18 month process. Weird deal, if a tornado wipes out your home you pay property taxes on that home that just disappeared. Until it is caught up to in valuations.

That's only because of the antiquated system they put in place. These values were created for a Jan 1, 2017 date but won't be paid until Sep 2018. A long lag time. The assessed value is the only difference between what you will pay and all of your neighbors pay. Either way, they've created a system as best they can where they can raise rates steadily pretty much every year because government always needs MOAR, MOAR, MOAR. IMO anything where yearly property taxes are >2% of the market value means you are just renting from the government. They are getting ridiculous. The entire Roman Government was built on taxes of 1-3%. Well that and taking the spoils of conquering other territories.
 
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nfrine

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Mar 31, 2006
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Anybody have experience fighting this type of increase?
o_O
Challenged assessments 3 different times over the years. Probably had 15 comparables each time. Looked like at least a 15% difference overall. Even had the assessor's house as one of the comps. No luck at all getting it changed.
 

Cycsk

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Challenged assessments 3 different times over the years. Probably had 15 comparables each time. Looked like at least a 15% difference overall. Even had the assessor's house as one of the comps. No luck at all getting it changed.


Seems like a tactic that is bound to backfire.
 
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mapnerd

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Aug 17, 2006
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Ames
That's only because of the antiquated system they put in place. These values were created for a Jan 1, 2017 date but won't be paid until Sep 2018. A long lag time. The assessed value is the only difference between what you will pay and all of your neighbors pay. Either way, they've created a system as best they can where they can raise rates steadily pretty much every year because government always needs MOAR, MOAR, MOAR. IMO anything where yearly property taxes are >2% of the market value means you are just renting from the government. They are getting ridiculous. The entire Roman Government was built on taxes of 1-3%. Well that and taking the spoils of conquering other territories.

No, it's still a good system. City, county, and school budgets rely on this money to run. The housing market can be incredibly volatile and it would be terrible to have swings in these budgets around +/- 20% or whatever every year. That would be a huge headache. Iowa has a pretty good system and was cushioned (for the most part) from the housing crisis.

The tax rate in Ames actually went down a few years ago. Would you be happy if one of your biggest investments was losing value every year? Or staying the same for decades?

How do you suggest to make things better?
 

Farnsworth

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2006
16,926
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Des Moines, IA
The Grade thing might be it. Ours is 3-5, their's is 3-10. Another guy on our block has even higher costs than ours, and his grade is 3+5.

Update on my situation. So prior to the discussion in this thread I had emailed the general Polk County Assessors email address asking the same question about the discrepancies between my neighbors house and ours not realizing the difference in grade (this was early yesterday morning).

They just gave me a call back and explained what I already found out about the grade, however took the reference of the neighboring house into consideration and they are now dropping our assessed value by $10K, which puts it a few thousand under what we had just paid for it last year. That was pretty easy considering I didn't have to do much research and never filed a formal appeal.
 
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Dandy

Future CF Mod
Oct 11, 2012
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Western Iowa
We live in northwest Iowa. House assessment went up ~$20,000 (~9%) and I'm totally cool with it. We (potentially) plan on moving within the next year or so. I could put the house on the market and sell it for $30,000-$40,000 more than what we bought it for two years ago. I will take that equity and finish off our student loans!
 

4theCYcle

Well-Known Member
Jul 14, 2013
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Urbandale, IA
We live in northwest Iowa. House assessment went up ~$20,000 (~9%) and I'm totally cool with it. We (potentially) plan on moving within the next year or so. I could put the house on the market and sell it for $30,000-$40,000 more than what we bought it for two years ago. I will take that equity and finish off our student loans!

Do you plan on downgrading? Essentially, depending where you move to or what you move into next, will likely have an increased value too. People aren't really gaining anything, especially if they are wanting to upgrade and will still have to come up with the difference. Loan values will just increase on average.
 

Dandy

Future CF Mod
Oct 11, 2012
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Western Iowa
Do you plan on downgrading? Essentially, depending where you move to or what you move into next, will likely have an increased value too. People aren't really gaining anything, especially if they are wanting to upgrade and will still have to come up with the difference. Loan values will just increase on average.
We will be upgrading, for sure. We are in an unique financial situation right now. Selling and upgrading will be in our favor. I am okay with the increased value of the next house.
 
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MNCYWX

Well-Known Member
Feb 7, 2010
2,214
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Med City, MN
Went up here in MN too. Not surprised. Real Estate market is through the roof right now.

Dwelling went up 9% but I'm okay with that. I've done soo much work since the last time it was assessed, it's probably not high enough. I like so many else around here should get about 40% more out of it than what I paid for it when I sell this fall. (Assuming the market holds)

Land has been flat-lined since I bought the place in '11.
 

cyclone87

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2011
2,988
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Ames, IA
Mine was up around 7%, has increased about 20k since we purchased, and we could probably sell for 30k over what we purchased for 4 years ago. Building some good equity.
 

ArgentCy

Well-Known Member
Jan 13, 2010
20,387
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Just be glad your assessors didn't go to this "automated" system. Nothing like being a mob member just doing whatever you want.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/tax-scandal-service-new-brunswick-1.4052233

Jill Jollineau was away when her property tax bill arrived the first week of March, but her bank immediately started removing an extra $150 a month from her chequing account to pay what the bill demanded.

In Jollineau's case, Service New Brunswick concocted a figure of $79,780 in renovations to her tiny 860 square foot home — or "major improvement change" in the parlance of the department — and then raised her tax bill a stunning 52 per cent because of the phantom improvements.

...By declaring all of the homes to have been renovated without knowing if they had been or not – even fabricating exact amounts for how much they had been renovated — the management team managed to evade the 10 per cent tax increase limit meant to protect homeowners like Jill Jollineau.
 

DBQR4CY

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2013
570
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Ankeny(By way of Dubuque)
I have my meeting with the board coming up this week on Wednesday morning. I'm not going to have a list of comparisons to use to explain why my property value isn't what they claimed. I can't do that because everyone saw a massive increase so its hard to find a comparison. Instead I'm going to review with them their history of assessing my house. In the 13 years leading up to the this most recent assessment my house went up a combine total of $18,000 in assessed value. Now in 1 year the assessed value jumped $12,500 (13.5%). This tells me one of two things, either the county grossly underestimated my homes assessed value for 13 years or they suddenly grossly overestimated my homes assessed value? I'm going to go with the ladder because the first would indicate vast negligence by the county for 13 years. Also, no major improvements have been done to our house since it was noted several years ago that the basement was finished. The roof is original and therefore each passing year the roof alone decreases in value. I'm also going to ask why for the sudden increase that came unexpectedly.

If the plan is to catch up with market trends then lets do that over the course of several years, as this will be a possible large increase in monthly mortgage payments without warning. The could've included that with the letter sent and stated that property taxes were based upon current rates and that they are subject to change due to local issues. So they messed up trying to do this all in one swipe and they should've had better communication with the public.
 

Cycsk

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I have my meeting with the board coming up this week on Wednesday morning. I'm not going to have a list of comparisons to use to explain why my property value isn't what they claimed. I can't do that because everyone saw a massive increase so its hard to find a comparison. Instead I'm going to review with them their history of assessing my house. In the 13 years leading up to the this most recent assessment my house went up a combine total of $18,000 in assessed value. Now in 1 year the assessed value jumped $12,500 (13.5%). This tells me one of two things, either the county grossly underestimated my homes assessed value for 13 years or they suddenly grossly overestimated my homes assessed value? I'm going to go with the ladder because the first would indicate vast negligence by the county for 13 years. Also, no major improvements have been done to our house since it was noted several years ago that the basement was finished. The roof is original and therefore each passing year the roof alone decreases in value. I'm also going to ask why for the sudden increase that came unexpectedly.

If the plan is to catch up with market trends then lets do that over the course of several years, as this will be a possible large increase in monthly mortgage payments without warning. The could've included that with the letter sent and stated that property taxes were based upon current rates and that they are subject to change due to local issues. So they messed up trying to do this all in one swipe and they should've had better communication with the public.


Please report on how it goes. I decided not to appeal because my best comparisons are neighbors whose assessment didn't go up nearly as much as mine and I don't want to throw them under the bus and get their assessments raised. I'm hoping that they do a system-wide reassessment and dial back all of our assessments. It is ridiculous that it goes up so much in one year. Perhaps the city should sue the ones doing the previous assessments if they were so undervalued.
 

nfrine

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Mar 31, 2006
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I have gone through assesessment appeals process three times over the past 12 years. Once, I used direct market comparisons in the neighborhood. The second time I used actual sales vs. assessed values. Both of these were turned down. The last time I used the assessor staff properties and the appeals board member properties (for the most part they were grossly undervalued). You guessed it, no luck. They will get their money.

My best advice...get on the assessement appeals board.