taxes/assessments question (Nashua, Hollis, New Ipswich: bank owned, comparable sales, sales)

[WannaComeHome]

Eveyone's favorite topic: taxes.

So there's a new house in our target town that 's just been put on the market. Turns out, it's my best friend from kindegarten/1st grade's house! right out our backyard. oh my!

Now it's bank owned. I have no idea how bad a shape it's in. But.. while the bank price is great, the taxes last year are.. daunting.

Now I know what the town taxes are, they're $16.44/1000. but.. that's the whole thing: assessed value.

Is the value determined by the sale of the house and worth of surrounding properties? or is it simply a calculation based on X-squarefootage, Y bedrooms, Z bathrooms on Q acres? I mean, if the listing is saying "This property needs work but will be spectacular after your rehab." (no worries: my parents are going to check it first before we come up. besides, wouldn't they all?) can it really be worth $4700 year - yes, it's a big house.

<gulp>

[AngelaK]

What town is that? I consider 4700 per year pretty low...........????

[WannaComeHome]

New Ipswich. the house is a 4br, 1.75bath, 3200sqft (yeah... I know ) on 1 acre.

Other places we've looked at were closer to $2000+ for taxes. I'm just wondering if it's based on paper description, or true market value of the house (that is: what it sells for. after all, something is really only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it).

[BF66389]

It's a mixture of both. We've found basically no association between assessed value and home sale prices. We looked at homes in Nashua for 100k below assessed value and homes in Hollis for 100k more...

It's simple math roughly based on area home sale prices...not really each specific home. This is easy if the home is very similar to everything else in the area (for example- a colonial in Nashua) but very hard when you get into more unique territory (non-weird contemporaries, southern plantation style homes, etc).

[WannaComeHome]

that's what I was afraid of.

I was hoping maybe some of the real estate folks - and wasn't there an assessor who popped up recently?- might be able to cheer me up.

Man, I want this house to work out! but.... that's a big chunk of money that can't go into the building fund.

[seamusnh]

Seems low. I don't think there are many towns where you could get a house like that (4br, 1.75bath, 3200sqft on 1 acre) and pay just $4700. That house in my town would cost you $9000+ in annual real estate taxes...

[Valerie C]

Wanna, you could try going for an abatement/tax reduction on the property if you can prove that similar properties sold for a similar amount as what you would pay. However, there is no guarantee that the town would agree... For what it's worth, my tax bill is almost 6K and not nearly the amount of square footage...

OK, just did some checking for you. Taxes are all over the place!
3400 s/f - 2007 tax $5793
2317 s/f - 2007 tax $4300
950 s/f - 2008 tax $4140 (just to show you the waterfront taxes!)
3036 s/f - 2007 tax $4456
3408 s/f - 2007 tax $2816 (what???)

I've got some other info to share, will send in a DM...

[sgthoskins]

Originally Posted by WannaComeHome

Eveyone's favorite topic: taxes.

So there's a new house in our target town that 's just been put on the market. Turns out, it's my best friend from kindegarten/1st grade's house! right out our backyard. oh my!

Now it's bank owned. I have no idea how bad a shape it's in. But.. while the bank price is great, the taxes last year are.. daunting.

Now I know what the town taxes are, they're $16.44/1000. but.. that's the whole thing: assessed value.

Is the value determined by the sale of the house and worth of surrounding properties? or is it simply a calculation based on X-squarefootage, Y bedrooms, Z bathrooms on Q acres? I mean, if the listing is saying "This property needs work but will be spectacular after your rehab." (no worries: my parents are going to check it first before we come up. besides, wouldn't they all?) can it really be worth $4700 year - yes, it's a big house.

<gulp>

The value is derived from comparable sales in the town for that particular style and model. There are a lot of factors that go in to it but for the most part the base rates are determined from comparable sales.

[seamusnh]

In my town, if you make any improvements that require a building permit, that will increase your real estate taxes....

[sgthoskins]

Originally Posted by seamusnh

In my town, if you make any improvements that require a building permit, that will increase your real estate taxes....

Which other than some small code enforcement is why there is a bldg permit process. They need to keep track of the properties they have to field review at a later date. They really are good at making sure they cover everything.