North Avondale - nice on the prime streets or still too dangerous? (Cincinnati: for rent, homes)

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

You are wrong yet again. The auditor consistently under-values properties relative to their sale price, often 20-50% or even more than 50%. The appraisal and precise calculation of the sum to be taxed is very complicated, but the bottom line is that property taxes are pretty damn reasonable in the city.

Here's just one example of an auditor's valuation more than $100k less than the sale price:
http://wedge1.hcauditor.org/view/re/...0/2016/summary

It's also important to note that the total collection of Cincinnati's property tax is limited to $29 million. Each year the city adjusts its millage in order to collect that exact amount. So if this practice continues after properties are reappraised in 2020, the city's millage will continue to decline.

OP, please do not take the above as a statement of fact. I don't have the time or energy to rebut it, but it's not reflective of my observations or experience. If you consider any of this important, double check with people who are professionals in the field. For heaven's sake, don't get the idea you're going to just have the auditor rubber-stamp a valuation that's half what you pay for your house. It won't happen.

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by Investor001

I'm checking out the further away areas to rule them out. I'm not interested in driving more than 15 minutes to work but I also do not want to regret it if I never looked there. A $400k+ home is a big expense and I want to vet everything thoroughly.

Excellent judgment. Only when we had almost given up and exhausted the areas we thought we wanted to buy in did we look seriously at the neighborhood we're in now. 16 years later we are so glad it worked out as it did. Not saying this would necessarily happen to you, but you are looking at property in a price range where you can't really expect to change your mind after a year or two and readily sell it. So, good you are being prudent.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Sarah Perry

I'd say Jacob has never purchased or owned a house, at least not in Hamilton County, or he couldn't be exhibiting this level of confusion even if he tried about how the auditor's site and the reassessment process related to a property sale works. It doesn't, of course, make him unqualified to have opinions about neighborhoods and the like, it's just worth making note of in terms of issues about the factors that go into a decision to purchase a given property. I know from experience, it's an entire different mindset when you can just pick up and move when your lease is up.

Homeowners pay property tax based on the assessed value, not the market value. Ohio's county auditors only appraise the home exterior, known data re: the house (i.e. number of bathrooms and square footage) and only appraise for tax purposes. Along with other issues, a county auditor's appraisal varies quite markedly from any bank's appraisal. If you pay $200k for a house appraised by Hamilton County at $100k, you don't pay double the tax. If you then sell it to someone for $50k, that future owner doesn't pay half.

When properties appreciate in value, there is a 3-year lag between adjustments. Every six years there is a physical reappraisal and then every third year there is an adjustment made based on the market. Because we are still recovering from the 2008-09 collapse, there is sometimes a huge disparity between market prices and appraised values.

For example, my cousin bought a house on the east side for $229k in 2013 when the auditor valued it at $190k. The auditor increased the assessed value to $229k in 2014 (it's a coincidence that it precisely matched the 2014 sales price), but the house could probably now sell for close to $300k. All Hamilton County properties will be physically reappraised in 2017 so the assessed value of that home will jump closer to its market value, but likely will not actually match it.

I personally pay property tax on a home that is assessed about $50k less than its market value. That gap will certainly shrink after the 2017 reappraisal, but the market value will still be higher as long as we don't sink into a steep recession.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

. . .

For example, my cousin bought a house on the east side for $229k in 2013 when the auditor valued it at $190k. The auditor increased the assessed value to $229k in 2014 (it's a coincidence that it precisely matched the 2014 sales price), but the house could probably now sell for close to $300k. . . .

Jacob, we have to end this or the boys upstairs will end it for us.

But, the revaluation to = sales price is no coincidence. It is what the Auditor does. Every sold property with a DTE100 will be valued at the sales price unless the purchase is not arm's length. The timing of that revaluation to sales price is subject to some Ohio RC procedure. But, it will end up at sales price. The last update was a couple of years ago so your cousin's property was revalued at that time. When the next update occurs, anything sold in the last three years will updated to sales price. Take a look at everything else sold in 2014 and see if you notice all of the other "coincidences."

If you don't get this, there is nothing more I can do for you. I'll post your quotes over on U-O if you want and they can help you with it, but let's be done with this here.

[Yac]

As the thread continues remember to remain calm, respectful and focus on helping the op, not proving someone else wrong.
Yac.

[motorman]

Originally Posted by Investor001

Reading Road around NA looks more run down than Montgomery Road. Some houses on Reading look completely abadoned. But both had some sketchy characters walking on the main roads...

Glad to hear that you've taken a tour of North Avondale, and thus experienced firsthand what this place actually is. As you must have realized by now, NA's only redeeming feature is its close proximity to the hospital district. While there's no question about the many fine homes in NA (some of them sumptuous), there should also be a wary appraisal of what buying such a home will mean over the years to come. Hopefully, some literary reflection here will help...

For just a few moments, return to Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" and the plight of Miss Havisham, locked within the confines of her dilapidated Satis House. If there was ever a contemporary city neighborhood to reenact this bleary drama and recast someone anew in the role of that unfortunate woman (sans wedding cake), it's NA and a self imposed exile within one of its mansions.

The remake plays like this: Entrapped in Cincinnati's premier nondescript, humdrum neighborhood and epicenter of one of its largest food deserts; embracing a relic laden Museum Land and entombing herself within one of its mansion mausoleums, a new actress makes her appearance, stage center. Do you really wish this role for yourself?

Soon enough, "Ms. Havestor," your most exciting daily activities will include feather dusting all your knick-knacks, playing croquet in the back yard, standing on the corner of Clinton Springs and Reading Rd. to count the Metro buses passing & listening for police sirens screaming towards South Avondale. In this sorrowful replay, a car will be your only means of escape.

[Wilson513]

Which takes us back to post 3:

Originally Posted by Wilson513

North Avondale is a collection of fine houses without a neighborhood. No place for children unless they are on house arrest.

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

Jacob, we have to end this or the boys upstairs will end it for us.

But, the revaluation to = sales price is no coincidence. It is what the Auditor does. Every sold property with a DTE100 will be valued at the sales price unless the purchase is not arm's length. The timing of that revaluation to sales price is subject to some Ohio RC procedure. But, it will end up at sales price. The last update was a couple of years ago so your cousin's property was revalued at that time. When the next update occurs, anything sold in the last three years will updated to sales price. Take a look at everything else sold in 2014 and see if you notice all of the other "coincidences."

If you don't get this, there is nothing more I can do for you. I'll post your quotes over on U-O if you want and they can help you with it, but let's be done with this here.

I believe also not explicitly mentioned in this group of comments on property tax is the extreme difficulty of getting a valuation lowered through appeal when it is adjusted to the recent sale price. My husband and I believed and still believe we overpaid by quite a bit for our house if you looked just at comps and market factors. We didn't care--to us it was worth what we paid. We were told by a number of knowledgeable sources to not waste our time trying to get the valuation reduced: that our willingness to pay what we paid in the arm's length sale IS what established the property's value. Hard to argue with. A couple of my neighbors have hired a retired appraiser from the auditor's office to try to get their assessments reduced over the years. They've had some minor success, and every tax dollar saved is worthwhile, but it hasn't been anything to write home about.

[cincydave8]

I just remembered reading this article about living in NA last year when I started house hunting. I figured I share it before Yac might have to close this thread.

Soapdish: Neighborhood Gem in North Avondale

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by cincydave8

I just remembered reading this article about living in NA last year when I started house hunting. I figured I share it before Yac might have to close this thread.

Soapdish: Neighborhood Gem in North Avondale

It's an informative article which does a great job of highlighting ONLY North Avondale's positive attributes, even spinning the lower property values for comparable houses as an unalloyed drawing card. But as anyone who remembers Phil Bates' cold-blooded murder on his own front porch can tell you, it's just not entirely the utopia the article describes.

I doubt that Yac's going to close the thread. I think most of us who've been active here are genuinely interested in seeing what the OP shares with us next.